City Kickboxing coach Eugene Bareman thinks his star pupil is facing his sternest test to date when he attempts to become a two-division UFC champion.
Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will move up a weight class to challenge light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz in Saturday’s UFC 259 main event, which takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and streams on ESPN+ pay-per-view.
Competing 20 pounds above his natural weight class, Adesanya (20-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) will face prolific knockout artist. In his past four wins, Blachowicz (27-8 MMA, 10-5 UFC) has taken out three opponents in emphatic fashion, including Dominick Reyes to win the light heavyweight title.
Despite Adesanya having both the height and reach advantage over Blachowicz, Bareman is wary of the threats that the Polish powerhouse brings to the table.
“This is Israel’s hardest fight by quite a bit,” Bareman told Submission Radio. “I think this is a jump up from any of his previous challengers. And for all intents and purposes within our camp, we are building ourselves as the underdogs. And we’re doing that based on we’re giving away this size and weight advantage that we sometimes have in our favor. Now we’re gonna give it away. So, it’s just a very hard (fight).
“What we’re about to attempt here is, people don’t understand, a very, very difficult endeavor and a very risky one, and one that makes for all us coaches and Israel, it makes the hairs on the back of our necks stand up. Because this is a true, true challenge – a hefty challenge. And it’s a scary one, and it’s one that gets you up early in the morning and wanting to attack it. And we’ve had a great camp because it’s just a highly motivating fight. And it’s a highly motivating fight because it’s such a dangerous fight.”
Blachowicz has been open to facing Adesanya for his first title defense ever since UFC president Dana White floated the idea, which got him excited at the possibility of handing Adesanya his first loss. He said he plans on making Adesanya remember him for the rest of his life.
So Bareman thinks it’s not just Blachowicz’s physical attributes that are a threat, but also his mental fortitude.
“The second thing that makes him very dangerous is his confidence,” Bareman said. “And his confidence doesn’t get talked about a lot because it’s not the braggadocios type of confidence that is a little bit more in line with Israel’s type of confidence. It’s just a quiet, unassuming confidence that I believe Jan has in his ability, and I believe Jan is extremely confident that Israel is not gonna have the tools to beat him.
“A lot of people, they understand that they have to be confident in a fight and they try to exude that, but they try too hard. Their confidence, to be honest, with a lot of fighters, it’s not really there. They’re just hoping that confidence, through acting confident, they’re hoping that this confidence will just arise out of nowhere. They don’t truly have it. But that’s not the case with Jan. I feel that he is genuinely, supremely confident that he can win this fight.
“And that to me, that’s like a very dangerous opponent. That’s an opponent that’s got nothing to lose. That’s an opponent that’s going to be willing to come in there and take risks that the other previous opponents haven’t been willing to do. So, two things: His physical advantages and then this quiet unassuming confidence that he kind of walks around with. I think those are the two dangerous things that kind of underline this fight.”
Coach before UFC 259: Israel Adesanya faces ‘hardest fight by quite a bit’ in Jan Blachowicz