Israel Adesanya has been put through the hardest training camp of his career for UFC 281 as his coach admits the top fighters at his gym were getting complacent.
Middleweight champion Adesanya, 33, looks to make the sixth defence of his title next weekend against former kickboxing rival Alex Pereira at Madison Square Garden. 'Stylebender' has lost twice to Pereira in kickboxing, going the distance with the Brazilian in 2017 before being brutally knocked out by him in their rematch the following year.
Eugene Bareman, Adesanya's head coach, thinks there was a "bit of complacency" at their City Kickboxing gym in Auckland, New Zealand. Bareman has ensured that top fighters such as Adesanya and Dan Hooker are still working as hard as they did at the start of their MMA careers, so he made sure to put them through extra tough training camps for their upcoming fights in New York.
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"There's a reason and we as a group of coaches felt that there was like a little bit of complacency amongst some of the senior guys. They were a little bit too comfortable and we decided as a group of coaches to address that," Bareman told Combat TV. "We went back a little bit in order to go forward. Other than maybe one interview, I've done no interviews, I've let no cameras in the gym at all. There's been no media. There's been no hoopla. We just decided to do this like we used to do it.
"That was part and parcel of just letting everybody, and the fighters, know that at the end of the day it doesn't matter who you are. As coaches and as a team, you are as far as we are concerned, a piece of s*** just like the rest of us. It's not necessarily that we think the guys needed reminded of this, but we felt it was time to make them understand that you've got to put your head down. Find another level, push and motivate yourself."
Much like his coach, Adesanya hasn't taken part in many interviews in the lead-up to his title fight as he looks to eliminate all distractions during his training camp. "It's not up to us [coaches] to always cuddle you towards that mindset," Bareman added. "You come into the gym and find that next level yourself. That's what we wanted to do and that's what we achieved. I'm very happy with that approach, although it caused a lot of disruption early in the camp. There were some very clear lines drawn between the coaches and the team."
