Israel Adesanya has split with longtime coach Eugene Bareman and left City Kickboxing, a change he said was coming for a long time. The move, announced on Thursday, ends a run that shaped his rise through the UFC and forces a reset before his next fight.
The timing matters because Adesanya, 36, is coming off four losses in a row, including a second-round TKO loss to Joe Pyfer in March. He has trained at City Kickboxing since 2009 and moved full time to the area in 2010, but he said he told Bareman face-to-face that he was not coming back to CKB.
For Adesanya, the split is less a sudden break than a decision built over time. He said it was “a long time coming behind the scenes,” called it “bittersweet,” and added that “insanity is doing the same shit and expecting a different result.” In his view, the change was about getting the kind of focused, individual training he wants now, not repeating the same setup that carried him through his peak years.
That does not make it easy for him. Adesanya said CKB made him into the fighter he is today and that he was one of the main pillars that put the gym on the world stage, but he also made clear he wants to handle the split quietly and in peace. The praise sits beside the fracture: a long partnership that helped define his career has now ended while he is trying to stop a skid that has cut deeper than any other stretch of his run.
What he has not said is just as important as what he has. Adesanya did not indicate where he might train next or who could run his future fight camps, leaving the biggest practical question unanswered as he moves on from Eugene Bareman and City Kickboxing. For now, the only certainty is that the next phase of his career will look different from the last one.
