Adesanya’s coach is confident an immediate rematch will go differently than Saturday’s fight against Strickland in Sydney, Australia.
Australia played host to another massive upset over the weekend at UFC 293.
One hundred pay-per-views prior at UFC 193 in Melbourne, Holly Holm knocked out Ronda Rousey to take the women’s bantamweight championship. Now Sean Strickland gave that legendary moment a run for its money, taking the middleweight title off Israel Adesanya in Sydney.
The MMA world is split on whether Strickland’s performance deserves the credit, or Adesanya’s performance is to blame. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, and Adesanya’s coach Eugene Bareman sounds certain a second fight will restore order to the universe.
“You have nights like this sometimes,” Bareman told Submission Radio after the fight. “The thing is what makes these fighters the best in the world and these teams the best in the world, is because they don’t have these nights often. But we had one. And we had one because Sean and his team, they were just better tonight. They were better than us. Like, I just can’t really sugarcoat that.”
“You don’t just go in one night and just not perform. It’s all for a reason,” he said. “And most of the time that reason is that the opponent does certain things that make you not perform. So, you can’t take nothing away from Sean. Was he the most unlikely champion ever? Even surpassing Michael Bisping? Some would say yes, and that’s just such a brilliant story for him.”
“And, the rematch will be the end of that story.”
Bareman was largely mum on what adjustments his team would make to ensure Adesanya emerged victorious against Strickland in a rematch, which UFC president Dana White has confirmed the promotion is interested in setting up next. But he did imply we’d see more offense from “The Last Stylebender.”
“Israel has to inflict more pain and damage on this man,” he said. “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. And if this is the end of the interview, then I want to congratulate Sean and Eric. And yeah, I’m looking forward to doing battle again.”
As for when a rematch could happen, and whether Adesanya will take some time off before stepping back into the cage? There was no indication of that at this time. Maybe Israel Adesanya will address that in one of his own YouTube videos in the coming weeks. Until then, we’ll just have to go off his coach’s words.