Former UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya, has dropped three of his last four, including his submission loss to Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 305 last August. That’s why head coach, Eugene Bareman, is overhauling “The Last Stylebender’s” training camp ahead of the UFC Saudi Arabia fight card on Feb. 1 at The Venue in Riyadh.
“There are a few things I’m doing quite differently with Izzy for this fight,” Bareman told Combat TV. “They’re a lot more drastic to what I’m usually accustomed to doing. I like to take things very steady and take a kind of … if it’s not broke there’s no need to fix it. But based on past performances I thought we needed to really just kind of flip things on its head a bit.”
The unbothered Adesanya headlines the card against French phenom Nassourdine Imavov.
“Yeah he’s looking really, really good and responding really, really well to this slightly different approach, something that he hasn’t been used to for the last few camps,” Bareman continued. “He’s responding really well and he’s looking really, really good. I’m looking for a very vintage performance from Israel and so far we’re right on track for that.”
Adesanya (24-4) is coming off back-to-back losses to Sean Strickland and the aforementioned Du Plessis and will compete in his first non-title bout in over five years. As for Imavov (15-4, 1 NC), now ranked in the Top 5 at 185 pounds, he’s looking to capture his fourth straight win after disposing of Brendan Allen at UFC Paris last September.
Let’s hope it’s four outa five.
LFG Izzy
About 97% of the time you see these “different fight camp this time around” stories the new fight camp guy loses. So I am going with whoever he is fighting.
Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Isn’t it a bit uncalled for labeling him a lefty faggot gay? He’s not that much of a leftist, really.
M to F?
A sex change?
I think he’s eyeing that Khelif fight.
I like how you think sir. That makes sense in my brain as well. I am betting on the French guy now. Frenchie by Decision.
Fuck. The guy he is fighting is French? That almost evens it out. Almost. Still, got to go with Frenchie by decision like you. Anyone else, that anyone else takes it easy.
Well, technically he is, but he was born in one of the Mountain Stans
I got Mountain Stan over big-one-tittie-new-special-training-camp-izzy all day long every day all day…
Sounds like the coach has no idea what to do so he is doing media