Coach explains what went wrong for Israel Adesanya in UFC 293 title fight with Sean Strickland

By Harry Kettle - September 11, 2023

Israel Adesanya’s head coach Eugene Bareman has explained what went wrong for his student in the UFC 293 main event.

Israel Adesanya

Last weekend, Israel Adesanya lost the UFC middleweight championship at UFC 293. He did so at the hands of Sean Strickland, who defeated him fairly convincingly via unanimous decision. It came after a fascinating five-round fight with perhaps the most notable moment coming in the first, when Strickland was able to drop ‘Stylebender’ pretty badly.

RELATED: SEAN STRICKLAND WEIGHS IN ON ISRAEL ADESANYA’S PERFORMANCE AT UFC 293: “AM I FIGHTING AN AMATEUR RIGHT NOW?”

Adesanya never really seemed to recover outside of a second round flurry and now, we have a new king in the middleweight division. Adesanya only made a brief appearance at the post-fight press conference before delegating the interview duties to the aforementioned Eugene Bareman, who had some interesting thoughts on how everything went down.

Bareman responds to Adesanya’s loss

“There was an alternate kind of universe where Israel performs his poorest or poorly where Sean could win, and I’m sitting in that universe right now. Training camp was great. I’m not going to make any excuses in regard to that. Leading up to the fight was great, sparring partners, everything. All the technical things that have to do with the camp were perfect. No excuses there.”

“I asked Mick if we could have the rematch next weekend,” Bareman said. “Will he grant it? I’m not sure, but I’m just very confident we can change the outcome of this fight with some minor adjustments. What I’m saying is that we couldn’t get Israel to enact our plan. There wasn’t much cohesion in the corner. You have nights like this. I think we can do the rematch tomorrow and have a good night.”

Quotes via MMA Junkie

What’s next for Israel Adesanya? Let us know your thoughts, BJPENN Nation!

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