Kiwi MMA mastermind Eugene Bareman believes he's uncovered some new weaknesses in Robert Whittaker for his star student Israel Adesanya to exploit in their main event rematch at UFC 271 on Sunday (NZ time).
At UFC 243 In 2019, Adesanya made quick work of the Kiwi-born Whittaker, twice sending him to the canvas en route to a second-round finish to clinch the UFC middleweight title in front of a record-setting crowd of 57,000 at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium.
In fact, the bout was so short-lived, it left precious few lessons for Bareman and his team to work with heading into the rematch.
Instead, the City Kickboxing sensei has turned his focus to Whittaker's most recent body of work - a three-fight win streak which he says is a much better reflection of 'Bobby Knuckles' as a fighter than was seen against Adesanya, when he abandoned his traditionally measured style in favor of an all-out aggressive assault.
"To be honest, we don't really take too much away from that first fight like we didn't, we didn't expect that to happen," Bareman tells Newshub.
"It's a bit difficult because that fight never really got started, so there's not too much you can pull away from it. But in the three fights that Robert had after that, there is a lot to garner from those three fights."
Adding that to their overall analysis of Whittaker's fight CV, Bareman is confident he's unearthed some "new vulnerabilities" for Adesanya to target.
"We've tailored that approach a little bit taking into account what we've learnt from those three fights," says Bareman, referring to Whittaker's unanimous decision wins over Darren Till, Jared Cannonier, and Kelvin Gastelum.
"We believe that there are some vulnerabilities there that were there before Israel fought him that we discovered from his previous body of work, and it was a very extensive body of work against some world class opponents.
"He's made improvement and that's been duly noted. But there's a couple of new things that we've seen, which we think we might be going to take advantage of as well."
Whittaker has since put that performance down to an irrational anger he'd held towards Adesanya, which Bareman dismisses as a coping mechanism for being outclassed by 'The Last Stylebender'.
"It's a brilliant strategy by himself and his team," says Bareman.
"A great thing to do for fighters is to find little things that they can blame a loss on, outside of physically and technically just getting beaten.
"It's much easier to blame it on things like that than to admit that you were just technically and physically and strategically bested. It's much easier to say, 'yeah, he got in my head, so that ruined everything'.
"Yes, there's a little bit of that. But for the most part, you just got checkmated and you just weren't good enough. That's the truth of the matter."
With Whittaker insisting he's much more clear-headed and focused heading into their second bout, Bareman says it's now down to Adesanya to unequivocally prove his superiority.
"Israel definitely got into Robert's head a little bit, but Robert's a solid guy with so much experience. You don't just fall apart when someone calls you some names.
"Robert never showed that in the past. As a team, you do want to push everything towards that excuse. But at the end of the day, that's just an excuse.
"If he's not going to acknowledge he was technically outclassed, all we have to do is go and do that again."
Bareman describes this fight camp as "one of the hardest" of Adesanya's career, as they've tried to ensure there hasn't been a hint of the "devil on our shoulder" complacency which often comes with a rematch, where the first result went so decisively in your favour.
With a fighter of Adesanya's experience, most of the focus has been on drawing "from the well" - taking his already vast array of techniques and further refining them for use.
After their truncated first bout, Bareman wants Adesanya to make a five-round statement against Whittaker - using all 25 minutes to reiterate his standing as one of the world's pound-for-pound best fighters.
"I want Israel to put on a clinic. I want Israel to show the science of boxing - like hitting and not getting hit.
"In many instances in MMA, it might not be as sophisticated as boxing in terms of the striking. But he can still bring across that notion that he can operate under the science of boxing.
"He can hit Robert and not get hit and just accumulate aggregate damage and just walk away with these rounds without having any doubt in the judges' minds.
"That's what I would like to see."
Join us from 12pm Sunday for live updates of UFC 271 - Adesanya v Whittaker
