Israel Adesanya’s coach has explained why his fighter’s walkout at UFC 287 made him ‘nervous’, before Adesanya went on to banish those nerves with a knockout win.
On Saturday, Adesanya stopped Alex Pereira in the second round of the UFC 287 main event, regaining the middleweight title that he lost to his old rival with a TKO defeat in November.
Pereira had also beaten Adesanya twice in kickboxing, including via KO, before the pair transitioned into MMA, and Eugene Bareman has admitted to being nervous in the moments before the rivals’ most recent clash.
“He did some things in that walkout that were a little bit uncharacteristic, that I haven’t seen him do,” Adesanya’s coach said on The MMA Hour.
“I could see in his face, I could see the way his face was and some of his mannerisms. I could see the way that he was greeting the crowd, and he even went and saw some of our training partners before he went into the cage. He never does that.
“There were some things there that I was like, ‘Man,’ and one of our other coaches, we looked at each other and we were like, ‘Oh, s***, are we okay here?’
“So I went up to [Adesanya], looked him in the eye, I said: ‘Stay calm.’ I think he might have even smiled, because in his head he still was calm, but he just wanted to do a little bit more. He just wanted to put this little bit extra; he felt he needed a little bit of something different before he hopped in the cage. So, once we locked eyes and we had that kind of mutual agreement that he was in the right place – he was in the same place, even though he was exhibiting different behaviors – then we were cool and we moved on. I think that is what he’s laughing at.”
Pereira, 35, started strong, and the Brazilian sought a finish with Adesanya, 33, backed up against the fence in Round 2. But Adesanya unleashed a perfect right hook out of nowhere to freeze his opponent. The Nigerian-New Zealander then knocked Pereira out cold with his subsequent punches, finally beating “Poatan” at the fourth time of asking.
Bareman whispered to Adesanya, “You’re a mastermind, remember, you’re a mastermind,” during the fighter introductions. “We knew that we had to take more risks in this fight, and all our [camp] we worked Israel diligently, relentlessly in a particular area of the fight where he was in danger, but we tried to mitigate [that] danger,” he said. “We knew that we were giving Israel more opportunities to take advantage of some of Pereira’s flaws, but to do that we had to put him at more risk than we were usually comfortable with.
“In that process, Israel gets himself excited. He’s like, ‘Man, this is going to be a great fight because you guys are going to put me in the fire in this fight.’ He was saying this eight weeks ago: ‘You’re going to stress out in this fight, because look at the game plan you guys are giving me. You’re going to stress out in this fight.’
“I’m not going to stress out. Why would I stress out? Everything you do is going to be safe. I like to remind him: That’s not what we’re going after. We’re going after cool, calm and collected. Just because we’re putting you in the firing line a little bit more, that doesn’t mean we’re asking you to let all your animal instincts take over and become some mindless, crazy fool.
“Even though you’re in the heat, you still have to be clear-minded and focused, and that’s all that was. It was just a reminder, ‘Hey, this is a game of intelligence. This is not a game of: You’re going to close your fist as hard as you can, bite your mouthguard down, and just try to knock this guy out.’ I just wanted to remind him about that, and that’s all that comment was about.”
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