Sean Strickland pulled off one of the most remarkable surprises in UFC history by earning a clear-cut decision victory over the two-time middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya.
The fight is considered one of the biggest upsets in the history of the MMA promotion, and Strickland himself was speechless after his victory, as he famously said, “Am I f***ing dreaming? Am I going to wake up?”.
While ‘Tarzan‘ was able to outclass one of the greatest middleweight fighters of all time at UFC 293, Adesanya’s coach Eugene Bareman is not too worried about the loss. He believes that a rematch is what Izzy would want right now, and that would be enough to re-establish him as the middleweight champion of the world.
While talking to Submission Radio, Bareman expressed that he wants to take nothing away from the new champion, Sean Strickland, and congratulated him and his team. However, he also warned them that a rematch would mark the end of his championship reign. “That’s just such a brilliant story, and the rematch would be the end of that story.” – said Eugene Baremen
Izzy’s coach also added that Strickland is arguably the most unlikely champion in the UFC, even more unlikely than the former middleweight champion Michael Bisping, who won the title by defeating Luke Rockhold in 2016.
Israel Adesanya’s coach reveals the reason for the loss against Sean Strickland
After his unexpected loss at UFC 293, Israel Adesanya has chosen to stay away from the media for a bit. He walked away from the press conference, and his coach Eugene Bareman handled the rest of the proceedings on the former champion’s behalf.
Bareman, the head coach at City Kickboxing, shared the same level of astonishment as the entire combat sports community when it came to the outcome of the fight at UFC 293. “The universe does things,” Bareman said at the UFC 293 post-fight press conference.
“I think Sean is a great fighter, and I never thought that Sean wasn’t capable of beating Israel, but I thought if Israel performed to the fullest of his capabilities, that it would be hard for Sean.” – he added.
However, more recently, he has acknowledged that there were some things that went wrong for Adesanya inside the Octagon. Bareman thought that Adesanya emptied his bag of tricks too early and was left with not much to exhibit as the fight progressed. “The way that this level of fighting is, you don’t want to show your bag of tricks too early. You want to set them up and finesse them.” – expressed Eugene Bareman
The head coach also admitted that the corner was not able to communicate the plan and the next possible move to Izzy, and overall, it was a bad night for the two-time champ. While the boss Dana White has shown interest in a rematch, we will have to wait to see what happens next in the middleweight division of the UFC.
