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Israel Adesanya made his highly-anticipated return to the octagon earlier this month, suffering a fourth-round submission loss to Dricus du Plessis at UFC 305. It marked his first bout since losing the middleweight title to Sean Strickland via unanimous decision at UFC 293 last September. Eugene Bareman recently revealed that the Strickland loss will likely haunt the two-time middleweight champion forever.
During a recent appearance on the Who The Fook Are These Guys? podcast, the City Kickboxing head coach was asked how 'The Last Stylebender' is handling his most recent defeat, responding:
"He’s handling it well and you’re right, I love the way he loses. I actually prefer the way he loses than the way he wins. I’m not a big fan of some of the ways that he wins but I’m definitely a big fan of the way he loses. I think he does it better than anyone in the sport. In a sport that's proliferated with a bunch of idiots that make up all sorts of the most ridiculous things I've seen over the years, especially at that level, it's just crazy and I think he does it the best."
Bareman continued:
"The Strickland loss, he will never get over. He just fought badly and just it was unexplainable. It's very hard to - it's untangible, it's not measurable like what caused it. You just go down a rabbit hole of a million things."
He added that Adesanya's loss to du Plessis is easier to get over as they are able to clearly see what went wrong.
Check out Eugene Bareman's comments on Israel Adesanya below (37:00):
Eugene Bareman shares timeline for Israel Adesanya's return
Israel Adesanya appears set to fight in a non-title bout for the first time since defeating Anderson Silva via unanimous decision at UFC 234 in February 2019. While there was speculation that he could take some time off, it appears that he will be back in the octagon this year.
City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman revealed that he does not expect inactivity from 'The Last Stylebender', which Championship Rounds shared, tweeting:
"🚨 Israel Adesanya's coach Eugene Bareman says that Adesanya will fight again before the end of the year (via. Combat TV) #UFC #MMA"
Check out the tweet from Championship Rounds below:
Adesanya's last 12 fights have come with UFC gold on the line. He will likely need another win before receiving a second crack at joining Randy Couture as the only fighters in promotional history to capture the same division's title three times. It is unclear which opponents his camp has in mind for his return.
