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City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman has laughed off criticism that he’s received from fans of Robert Whittaker.
Over the course of the last few years, there’s been a real Oceania rivalry between Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya. The two are widely considered to be the best middleweights on the planet and in early 2022, we’re expected to see them clash with the UFC middleweight title on the line for the second time.
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Eugene Bareman, who has been at the forefront of Adesanya’s rise to prominence in mixed martial arts, has been heavily involved in this “feud” and hasn’t been afraid to give his thoughts on “Bobby Knuckles” and his camp.
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As a result of that, he’s received some hate from fans of Robert Whittaker, but that doesn’t appear to phase him too much. Discussing the comments he's received during an interview with It's Time For Sports, Bareman said:
“Look, I’m not even trying to promote the fight, I’m just having a go at my Robert Whittaker fans. We share fans. All Robert Whittaker fans are Eugene Bareman fans. Look, that’s just a Kiwi sense of humor. You know what we do, right? We say stuff like that and then we have a little Messenger or WhatsApp group and what the boys do is they do an interview, I tick off all the Robert Whittaker fans and then they screenshot and send me the most vile comments. The most terrible ones that you’d never say to your worst enemy! They screenshot that and we play around with them and we rate them and we say, ‘Check this out, this is a good one!’ We’re just having fun. It’s honestly just a battle with the fans. I respect Robert and I respect that team a lot, obviously.”
Catch It's Time For Sports' full interview with Eugen Bareman below:
What happened in the first Robert Whittaker vs. Israel Adesanya fight?
Back at UFC 243, in front of the biggest live crowd in UFC history, Israel Adesanya finished Robert Whittaker in the second round of their title showdown and became the undisputed UFC middleweight champion.
It was a crowning that was a long time in the making. Since then, Adesanya's managed to successfully retain the strap against Yoel Romero, Paulo Costa and Marvin Vettori.
On the flip side, Robert Whittaker has gone from strength to strength and will be seen as a very credible threat if their expected UFC 271 meeting takes place.
