Eugene Bareman

The Auckland foundation

Eugene Bareman co-founded City Kickboxing in Auckland, New Zealand in 2009 with Doug Viney. His own competitive background was in Muay Thai and K-1 kickboxing across the 2000s, including international travel to fight on K-1 cards in Japan and across the Asia–Pacific circuit. The transition to MMA coaching came as Israel Adesanya joined the gym in 2012 after a 75-fight kickboxing career in China and Australia.

By 2022, Bareman had produced two simultaneous UFC champions — Adesanya at middleweight and Volkanovski at featherweight — making CKB the most-decorated non-US gym in modern MMA history and Bareman one of the most-credentialed head coaches of the era.

The lineage

Bareman's coaching lineage runs through the New Zealand and Australian Muay Thai and K-1 circuit. His own striking coaches included veterans of the Lumpini-circuit Thai tradition and the Dutch-Muay-Thai hybrid that dominated the K-1 mid-2000s. The Dutch kickboxing influence — high-volume combinations, leg-kick patience, the body-shot setup for the head shot — runs visibly through the CKB style.

The MMA-side coaching that Bareman absorbed came through Doug Viney (his co-founder) and through the broader Australasian MMA community in the late 2000s. Bareman has openly stated that his MMA-specific coaching is self-taught from film study rather than pedigree training — a contrast with American head coaches whose lineage typically traces through a specific gym tradition (ATT, AKA, Jackson-Wink).

The athletes

• Israel Adesanya — UFC middleweight champion 2019–2022 and again April 2023–September 2023. Five title defenses across both reigns.
• Alexander Volkanovski — UFC featherweight champion 2019–February 2024 and again April 2025–present. Five title defenses in his first reign; recaptured title at UFC 314.
• Dan Hooker — top-tier UFC lightweight contender across the late 2010s and early 2020s. Multiple Performance of the Night bonuses.
• Kai Kara-France — UFC flyweight title challenger (UFC 277). The CKB flyweight pipeline.
• Carlos Ulberg — rising UFC LHW contender as of 2026.
• Brad Riddell, Tyson Pedro, Mike Mathetha (variously historic CKB roster across 2017–2024).

The coaching philosophy

Bareman's coaching is built on four pillars:

Kickboxing foundation. K-1-level striking fundamentals as the base before MMA-specific elements. Every CKB fighter goes through at least 18 months of kickboxing-specific work before MMA wrestling and grappling are integrated. The result is a roster with consistently elite distance management and lead-leg defensive footwork.

Game-plan precision. Each fight is prepared with specific tactical adjustments based on opponent film study. The Adesanya counter-right that finished Pereira at UFC 287 was a multi-camp gameplan — Bareman identified that Pereira's pressure pace cost him head movement on the way in, and Adesanya's camp was structured to land the counter at the specific moment Pereira committed.

Brotherhood culture. The roster trains as a team, with senior fighters mentoring incoming prospects. The Adesanya–Volkanovski training relationship (visible in their corner work for each other across the past five years) is the most-cited example. The result is a low-attrition roster — fighters who join CKB tend to stay.

Public-persona management. Bareman coaches the post-fight interview and the pre-fight cultural presentation as carefully as the fight itself. The Adesanya cultural presence (Naruto walkouts, Nigerian-Maori cultural integration, the Last Stylebender persona) reflects Bareman's coaching scope — public-facing presentation is part of the championship-level athlete development.

Signature corner moments

• UFC 287, Adesanya vs Pereira 2, April 2023: Bareman's pre-fight gameplan was the counter-right specifically. Between rounds 1 and 2, his instruction was "he'll commit on the next combination — be ready off the back foot." Adesanya landed the counter at 4:21 of round 2 for the KO.
• UFC 243, Adesanya vs Whittaker 1, October 2019: Bareman's gameplan was to draw Whittaker into pocket exchanges where Adesanya's reach + timing would land. The round-2 KO at 3:33 followed exactly the pattern Bareman had drilled.
• UFC 314, Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes, April 2025: Bareman's pre-fight read was that Lopes's offensive aggression would create grappling counters. The volume-and-wrestling gameplan produced a clean five-round decision win and reclaimed the FW title.

The 2022–2024 reassessment

The losses to Alex Pereira (Adesanya, UFC 281) and Ilia Topuria (Volkanovski, UFC 298) forced strategic reassessment. Bareman's response was concrete:

• More wrestling-defense training under expanded coaching staff (including specific takedown-defense camps in Australia)
• Greater emphasis on damage avoidance in late-career campaigns
• Continued cultural-figure development for the next-wave roster (Ulberg, Mathetha)

By April 2025, Volkanovski had recaptured the featherweight title at UFC 314, confirming the Bareman coaching system remained at championship level. Adesanya's two consecutive MW title-shot losses (Strickland UFC 293, DDP UFC 305) ended his championship arc, but Bareman's corner work in both fights remained technically sound — the losses were attributed to age and accumulated damage rather than coaching deficiency.

The legacy

Eugene Bareman is the most-decorated non-American head coach of the modern UFC era. The combined Adesanya–Volkanovski title reigns produced more title-defense bouts than any other single coach–athlete pair partnership in MMA history (10 successful defenses combined across the two fighters' first reigns).

His coaching template — kickboxing foundation + game-plan precision + brotherhood culture + public-persona management — has been openly imitated by subsequent international MMA gyms attempting to replicate the CKB success, with City Kickboxing satellites and affiliates emerging in Australia, the UK, and South Africa by 2025.