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; the transition to MMA coaching came as Israel Adesanya joined the gym in 2012 after a 75-fight kickboxing career.

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.

The athletes

• Israel Adesanya — UFC middleweight champion 2019-2022, 2023
• Alexander Volkanovski — UFC featherweight champion 2019-2024, 2025-present
• Dan Hooker — top-tier UFC lightweight contender
• Kai Kara-France — UFC flyweight title challenger
• Carlos Ulberg — rising UFC LHW contender

The coaching philosophy

Bareman's coaching is built on three pillars:

• Kickboxing foundation: K-1-level striking fundamentals as the base before MMA-specific elements.
• Game-plan precision: each fight is prepared with specific tactical adjustments based on opponent film study.
• Brotherhood culture: the roster trains as a team, with senior fighters mentoring incoming prospects.
• Public-persona management: Bareman coaches the post-fight interview 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.

The 2022-2024 reassessment

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

• More wrestling-defense training under expanded coaching staff
• Greater emphasis on damage avoidance in late-career campaigns
• Continued cultural-figure development for the next-wave roster

By April 2025, Volkanovski had recaptured the featherweight title at UFC 314, confirming the Bareman coaching system remained at championship level.

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-pair partnership in MMA history.

His coaching template — kickboxing foundation + game-plan precision + brotherhood culture — has influenced subsequent international MMA gyms attempting to replicate the CKB success.