Israel Adesanya’s coach believes Jared Cannonier is the best of the middleweight champ’s recent title challengers.
Adesanya will be taking on Cannonier for his title of middleweight in Saturday’s main event at UFC 276. It marks Adesanya’s fifth title defense, and though “The Last Stylebender” has defenses over some of the top names in the division, his head coach Eugene Bareman said Cannonier ranks above those names on the list of contenders.
“I put him at the top amongst those guys, for several reasons,” Bareman told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “Amongst out recent challengers, I put him at the top of that list.
” I can tell you the number. 1 reason, and I believe it’s just mental fortitude. I believe when it gets tough in this fight, which I think it will be, I think he will be the guy that is able to will himself to walk through a bit of fire. Where I felt like the other guys, they might have said they know how to do that, but when they felt the sharpness and they felt the sting, their mind kind of changed, which I think Jared will push through.”
While some may view this as disrespect to Robert Whittaker (the former champion), Adesanya beat him twice earlier in the year at UFC 271, Bareman stated that it was more about having fought Whittaker against a new challenge from Cannonier.
” “There is something about being unknown that makes you a bit more nervous,” Bareman stated. “It gives you a little bit of sharpness that you don’t necessarily have in a rematch because of that familiarity.”
Adesanya speaks out about Cannonier since he took the title from Whittaker in . However, “The Killa Gorilla”, who lost his fight to Whittaker in , delayed their matchup.
Even after this setback, Bareman knew that a Cannonier fight would be inevitable.
“I felt he stumbled, but I always thought Jared was right amongst the top guys consistently, so I thought eventually we would meet him,” Bareman said. “So we’ve kept a close eye on Jared, which is pretty good, because we didn’t have to do as much homework as we normally would because we’ve already been keeping a close eye on him.”
Bareman is full of praises for Cannonier but he doesn’t think there will be any upset this weekend. Even though Cannonier may be the best title challenger Adesanya has recently faced, he expects his fighter to rise to the occasion.
” I’m not expecting the Gastelum fight,” Bareman stated. “I’m still expecting a master class, but I’m expecting an opponent who is willing to push Israel and walk through a bit of fire, which always makes it interesting.”
UFC 276 will be held on Saturday, at T-Mobile Arena Las Vegas.
