City Kickboxing coach Eugene Bareman is fully confident that Israel Adesanya will beat Sean Strickland in a rematch.
Strickland (28-5 MMA, 15-5 UFC) upset Adesanya (24-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC) by unanimous decision to claim the middleweight championship at UFC 293 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney.
During the UFC 293 post-fight news conference, Bareman said that if Adesanya had performed to the fullest of his capabilities, it would be hard for Strickland to win. UFC president Dana White said a rematch should be next, and Bareman knows Adesanya will need to be a lot more aggressive if they run things back.
“Israel has to inflict more pain and damage on this man,” Bareman told Submission Radio. “And what that’s going to mean is we have to find a way to do it and minimize how much harm we kind of put in front of them. Because when you try to hurt someone, the cost of that is that you’re putting yourself in harm’s way for a little bit.
“And our job is to find a way that you can stay just inside enough to inflict some proper damage but still mitigate the risk. And so, you’re going to see a fight. You’re going to see a real good fight, an intriguing rematch against a great opponent and a great team.”
Bareman doesn’t see too many adjustments being needed for Adesanya to avenge his loss, prompting him to say post-fight that they’d be ready for a rematch next week.
“Realistically, end of the year, start of next year,” Bareman said. “I said one week because that was me eluding to, I think the game plan is still there. It still exists. I think that there’s some mental things there that we can quickly adjust in a week and then get back in there, and we could see a completely different fight. Whether Sean’s able to impose those mental blocks that he put on Israel, I don’t know if he’ll be able to do that again.”
Bareman and Adesanya are no strangers to bouncing back. Adesanya lost his middleweight title to Alex Pereira by knockout at UFC 281 but was able to reclaim it with a knockout of his own when they rematched this past April at UFC 287.
Adesanya had five months to make adjustments in between his first and second Pereira fights, but Bareman is confident they wouldn’t need that much time for Strickland.
“We can turn that over real, real quick,” Bareman said. “Pereira, we couldn’t have turned it over in a week. We needed time. We needed time. There was things there that we needed to adjust. There were details there we needed to look at. Like, realistically, end of the year, start of next year. Time is what good coaches, good teams need. They need time to develop things. And I got a really good team too.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 293.
