Israel Adesanya suffered a defeat on his return at UFC 305 but as always, he was incredibly respectful and humble in defeat.
Fight fans have seen “The Last Stylebender” come up short on four occasions during his time in the promotion.
Which each loss, he has always continued to represent himself and his team incredibly well and this is something that his coach takes a lot of pride in.
The only slight exception to this was his loss to Sean Strickland at UFC 293, where Adesanya decided to not speak to the media but this was understandable after the amount of time he had spent doing his media duties throughout his UFC career.
In fact, the former middleweight champion’s character after a defeat is so strong that his coach prefers this side of him to the celebratory one after a win.
Eugene Bareman Says Israel Adesanya Is Better At Handling Losses Than Anyone Else In MMA
Though City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman would obviously rather that Adesanya wins each and every one of his fights, he does like seeing the man that his fighter is in the difficult moments where he lets his opponent have their moment without stepping in the way.
There was a lot of tension between Adesanya and Dricus Du Plessis heading into this fight but any beef was squashed after the two men faced off in Perth.
During a recent appearance on the ‘Who The Fook Are These Guys?’ podcast, Bareman spoke about how great “The Last Stylebender” is after a defeat.
He also referenced how the shock upset loss to Strickland is an exception because they weren’t able to take positives or lessons from that particular setback.
Yeah he keeps handling it well and you’re right, I love the way he loses. I actually prefer the way he loses than the way he wins. I’m not a big fan of some of the ways he win but I’m definitely a big fan of the way he loses. I think he does it better than anyone in the sport. In a sport that’s proliferated with a bunch of idiots that make up all sorts of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen over the years, especially at that level it’s just crazy, and I think he does it the best but I mean the Strickland loss, he’ll never get over. You just fought badly and it was unexplainable.
