Israel Adesanya has walked away from City Kickboxing, the Auckland gym that turned a young kickboxer into one of the most recognisable fighters in the world. The former UFC middleweight champion confirmed the split in a video posted to his FREESTYLEBENDER YouTube channel on 9 July, ending a partnership that ran for roughly 17 years and produced a run of world titles that few New Zealand athletes have ever matched.
Adesanya, who is 36 and carries a professional record of 24 wins and 6 losses, said the decision had been building quietly for months. He told viewers that he had already broken the news to his long-time head coach in person before saying anything publicly.
“So Wednesday 20th May, I spoke to Eugene (Bareman) face to face and I told him I am not coming back to CKB,” Adesanya said, referring to the coach who has stood in his corner for every major fight of his career.
He described the moment as difficult but necessary. “I won’t lie, it sucks,” he said, before adding that the move was “bittersweet, but it’s the right thing for me”. The reason he gave was simple. After years inside a busy team environment built around several elite fighters, he wants something more tailored to himself. “What I need for myself is focused, individual, training,” he said.
The relationship goes back a long way. Adesanya first walked into City Kickboxing around 2009, when he was still finding his feet as a striker in Auckland, and the gym in Morningside became the base for everything that followed. “CKB made me into the fighter that I am today,” he acknowledged, a nod to the coaching and the training partners who helped shape him even as he closed the door on that chapter.
Under Eugene Bareman, Adesanya climbed from the regional circuit to the very top of the sport. He won the UFC middleweight belt in 2019 and defended it six times, a stretch that made him the face of the division and a genuine pay-per-view draw. He lost the title in a step up to light heavyweight against Alex Pereira in 2022, then reclaimed the middleweight crown with a knockout of Pereira at UFC 287 in April 2023. That win remains his last inside the octagon.
What has followed is the hardest patch of his career. The losing run now sits at four straight defeats. It began in September 2023 when Sean Strickland took the belt off him on the judges’ scorecards. At UFC 305 in August 2024 he suffered the first submission loss of his career against Dricus du Plessis. Then came two stoppage defeats, the first to Nassourdine Imavov in 2025 and the most recent to Joe Pyfer at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on 28 March 2026, where he was stopped in the second round.
Speaking last month, before the City Kickboxing announcement, Adesanya made clear that retirement is not on his mind. He said his drive to keep fighting is deeply personal and admitted “my ego is very tied into this”, explaining that he does not want to end a career built on titles with a string of losses. The gym change reads as part of that same push to find whatever it takes to win again.
For New Zealand fight fans, the separation lands with a jolt. City Kickboxing and Adesanya grew famous together, and the gym’s rise into a globally respected operation was bound up with his success. Bareman and the wider team have coached other big names on the international stage, and the Auckland gym has long punched well above its weight for a country its size. Adesanya was quick to say the split was not about bad blood, framing it instead as two parties who had simply reached a natural fork in the road.
There was no immediate public response from Bareman or City Kickboxing at the time of the announcement, and Adesanya does not have a fight booked. Where he trains next, and who ends up in his corner, will be the questions that follow him into his next camp. You can read his full explanation and the wider reaction through Cageside Press and MMA Weekly.
Whatever comes next, the numbers tell their own story. A teenager who wandered into a Morningside gym went on to win and defend a UFC world title and headline arenas around the planet. That partnership has now ended, and at 36 Adesanya is betting that a fresh approach can turn his fortunes back around.
What do you make of Adesanya leaving City Kickboxing, and can he rebuild without the team that made him? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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