Eugene Bareman who is currently training the likes of UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is the head trainer and founder of City Kickboxing. The Mad Genius hails from Auckland, New Zealand and was born on 26 August 1942.
Before training fighters, Eugene was also a former MMA fighter who competed in local kickboxing tournaments in 2001. However, Bareman didn’t have a very successful fighting career as he has a record of four wins and three losses. In 2007, Eugene Bareman along with Doug Viney founded the City Kickboxing.
They started this gym with their own funding and initially opened this facility for their training. However, as years passed by, they started training professional fighters due to unforeseen reasons and soon they made a name for themselves around New Zealand.
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Thereafter Eugene Bareman made his transition from a fighter to a coach. With the help of Doug Viney and Eugene, City Kickboxing Academy’s athletes started featuring in several top promotions like the Glory and The King of the Ring. This academy started making waves in the UFC after Dan The Hangman Hooker made his promotional debut in 2014.
Soon Alexander Volkanovski, Israel Adesanya, Kai Kara France and many others stamped their authority in the UFC and ever since their breakthrough, City Kickboxing has progressed like never before.
Israel Adesanya’s relationship with Eugene Bareman
Without the guidance of Eugene Bareman, we might have not seen Israel Adesanya become the fighter he is right now. Such is the contribution of the Kiwi coach in the Last Stylebender’s MMA career. Interestingly, a friend asked him to train Adesanya as a favour. However, Eugene parted ways with Izzy after he failed horribly in his first few amateur fights.
Adesanya continued training at the City Kickboxing Academy as he had no other place to go. But Eugene acknowledged him after his wife told him that she saw Izzy fight in a kickboxing match. This detail caught the attention of The Mad Genius and he saw Israel’s hard work and perseverance in the gym. From thereon Eugene Bareman took Israel Adesanya under his wings and helped him reach his full potential.
Along with Eugene, Israel rapidly made big progress in his MMA career. He won the King of the Ring tournament and started racking up wins in different MMA organizations. After gaining tremendous amount of experience in China and in other MMA promotions, Izzy received a contract from the UFC. Under the guidance of Eugene Bareman, The Last Stylebender took the middleweight division of the UFC by storm in 2018.
City Kickboxing vs everyone!
It’s cuz of these man and their efforts that I am here today. Without them my skill set would not be what it is today.
I am the canvas, these are the artists ???? pic.twitter.com/8bAWCG6wz7— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) October 10, 2019
Soon Adesanya made his way to the top and won the middleweight title. Consequently, The Nigerian fighter always gives the credit for his success to his head coach Eugene Bareman, City Kickboxing Academy and all his teammates.
For helping Adesanya and Volkanovski win the UFC titles in their respective divisions, Eugene Bareman won the UFC coach of the year in 2019. It is needless to say that Bareman’s influence has been the major reason why Adesanya is the UFC middleweight champion.
Now The Last Stylebender will face a tough test in the form of Robert Whittaker at UFC 271. Consequently, Head coach Eugene Bareman will be in his corner guiding him for this big fight.
