Eugene Bareman Leads a Rising Tide
With the likes of Israel Adesanya and Dan Hooker, Eugene Bareman is pushing New Zealand MMA into the spotlight.
In 2007, Eugene Bareman and Doug Viney hoped opening their own gym would translate to more time spent honing their craft. Instead, the business side of running a gym got in the way. About a dozen years later, City Kickboxing is home to UFC champions and contenders and represents a rising tide of mixed martial arts in Oceania.
Not bad for a gym all the way out in Auckland.
“The speed that we’ve done it in has been the phenomenal part,” Bareman told UFC.com. “That part has taken us a bit by storm. We knew we could do it, but we didn’t know the timeframe that it would happen in, and the speed is the thing that took us a bit by surprise.”
Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is most representative of the gym’s rapid ascent to the forefront of the MMA world. In his first 20 months on the roster, Adesanya headlined his first main event five months after his promotional debut, scored a knockout win in Madison Square Garden, won interim gold in 2019’s Fight of the Year, and unified that belt in front of a record-breaking crowd at UFC 243.
In Melbourne last October, Bareman had a busy night himself. City Kickboxing was thrice represented, and on top of Adesanya’s emphatic win, lightweights Dan Hooker and Brad Riddell took home wins for what they called a “three-peat.” Two months later, Alexander Volkanovski – who splits time between City Kickboxing and Freestyle Fighting Gym in New South Wales – took featherweight gold in a masterful performance over Max Holloway.
“I was immensely proud,” Bareman said. “When you work that hard for something, and something that, at different times, seems almost unobtainable, almost impossible, almost like climbing a never-ending mountain and you can’t really see an end, to obtain that and get to the top of that mountain is an indescribable feeling, and why I say that is because a big part of the feeling I got, you have to go through it. You have to go through the actual experience to feel those feelings. No description does it justice.”
The gym did their best Michael Jordan impersonation a few months later, going 3-for-3 once again, and this time, it came in front of their fellow Kiwis.
Kai Kara-France joined the party as he, Riddell and Hooker took home decision wins. The night was particularly special for Hooker, though. The gym’s longest-tenured athlete on the roster, Hooker earned a hard-fought bout against Paul Felder in his first main event, one that was an early Fight of the Year entrant.
“Kiwis, New Zealanders, we are so proud of our culture,” Bareman said. “It’s something we hold very dear to our hearts.”
That night felt like a solidifying coming out party for mixed martial arts in New Zealand, one that started years ago when the gym first opened. Because the nation is so isolated from nearly every other in the world, Bareman said obtaining resources is a bit more difficult than it is for some of the bigger MMA gyms in the world. But, he credits the Kiwi “do it yourself, ‘Number eight wire’” attitude of using what’s available as part of how they overcome those obstacles.
That approach is something that translates to the fight. When someone is coming out of City Kickboxing, you’re nearly guaranteed to see an athlete down for a scrap, but Bareman and his crew also emphasize a technical approach as well.
“All my guys, if they want to get down and dirty, and they want to really push, they can bite down on their mouthguard and push as hard, if not harder, than anybody in this sport,” Bareman said. “That’s definitely not the best path for victory sometimes, so for me, it’s just about containing that sort of aggression and that sort of heart. But having it there is a good card to have in your back pocket.”
You can see that grit in several of their performances – Adesanya’s fifth round against Gastelum and Riddell’s final punch from his knees at UFC 243 come to mind – but so do the disciplined, well-planned efforts such as Hooker’s win over Al Iaquinta and Kara-France’s win over Tyson Nam.
Bareman – in his own right a successful Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts competitor – can see the value of the gym’s success impact him personally, as well.
“This whole sport has changed me as a person,” Bareman said. “I’ve definitely changed. I think I’ve become a better person because of what’s happened in the last few years. I’m a lot more comfortable than I was in certain situations; interviews, for instance. I was not very comfortable in front of the media, but nowadays, it’s part of what we do, and the way the sport is growing and developed, this is a part of it.
“Spiritually, emotionally, mentally, this journey, and especially in the last few years, has been very good for my well-being.”
Along that journey, Bareman sees City Kickboxing’s rising profile as an opportunity to not only influence the sport but also the community. Though the gym’s legacy is more in its foundational stage in terms of its impact in the UFC, he is well-aware that the work they’re doing can reach far beyond the dimensions of the Octagon.
“I just want the sport and my gym to have touched them in some positive sort of manner, whether it be Israel or whether it be someone that’s just coming in to get fit and lose some weight,” he said. “I just want them to remember me and just think that I’ve had some sort of positive impact on them, whether that means winning a world title and having a hand in them securing their financial future, or whether that means they came in here for six months and lost 10 kilos for their wedding or something. I just want people to remember me for having a positive impact and my gym for having a positive impact on their life.”
