City Kickboxing

The Auckland origin

City Kickboxing (CKB) was founded in 2009 by Eugene Bareman and Doug Viney in Auckland, New Zealand. The original program was kickboxing-focused — Bareman's own competitive background was in Muay Thai and K-1. The transition to MMA came in the early 2010s as Israel Adesanya joined the gym after his 75-fight kickboxing career and began the MMA crossover.

By the mid-2010s CKB had developed into the most-successful Australasian MMA gym in history, producing two simultaneous UFC champions (Israel Adesanya at middleweight and Alexander Volkanovski at featherweight) — a feat no other single non-American gym has matched.

The kickboxing foundation

CKB's defining feature is the kickboxing-first training program. Where most MMA gyms develop wrestling and BJJ as the foundation, CKB starts with K-1-level kickboxing and integrates wrestling/grappling as supplements. The result: CKB fighters are typically the cleanest fundamental strikers in their UFC weight classes.

The kickboxing program produces:

• Lead-leg side kicks and front kicks as long-range scoring weapons
• Calf-kick attacks integrated into all striking exchanges
• Counter-striking precision that wins championship rounds
• Distance management through karate-influenced footwork

The wrestling program is supervised by Doug Viney and visiting collaborators. While not at AKA's wrestling level, CKB produces enough wrestling defense to keep fights standing where the kickboxing matters.

The roster

• 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
• Multiple regional and developmental contracted fighters

The roster has been remarkably stable. Adesanya, Volkanovski, and Hooker have trained at CKB since their MMA debuts; the brotherhood culture is documented as the most-bonded in MMA after the AKA partnership.

The Eugene Bareman coaching

Eugene Bareman is the most-credentialed head coach of the 2020s MMA era. His coaching philosophy:

• Game-plan precision: every fight is prepared with a specific tactical plan, including 3-4 contingency adjustments.
• Conditioning over volume: training emphasis on cardio depth rather than high-volume sparring.
• Brotherhood culture: the roster trains as a team, including post-fight recovery and personal-life support.
• Public-persona management: Bareman coaches the post-fight interview as carefully as the fight itself.

The Adesanya cultural presence (the Last Stylebender persona, the anime walkouts, the Nigerian-Maori cultural integration) is partly a CKB product — Bareman has been explicit that the team-wide image management is part of his coaching scope.

The post-2022 evolution

The losses to Alex Pereira (Adesanya, UFC 281, November 2022) and Ilia Topuria (Volkanovski, UFC 298, February 2024) forced strategic reassessments. CKB'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 (Carlos Ulberg, Kara-France)

By mid-2025, Volkanovski had recaptured the featherweight title (UFC 314, April 2025), confirming CKB's continued championship credibility.

The legacy

CKB demonstrated that a non-American gym could produce championship-level UFC athletes at scale. The Auckland location — far from the traditional MMA hubs of California, Florida, and New York — proved that the right coaching system could overcome geographic disadvantages.

The CKB template has influenced subsequent international gyms (notably Caio Borralho's Fighting Nerds in São Paulo) by demonstrating that the kickboxing-first MMA program can compete at the championship level.