{"id":534035,"date":"2026-07-10T02:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T02:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/534035\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T02:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T02:47:21","slug":"israel-adesanya-announces-departure-from-city-kickboxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/534035\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Adesanya announces departure from City Kickboxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship<\/a> middleweight king Israel Adesanya<\/a> is going in a new direction.<\/p>\n

Posting a video on his personal YouTube channel on Thursday titled \u201cI\u2019m Leaving CKB,\u201d<\/a> Adesanya explained that he was doing just that: departing the confines of Auckland, New Zealand-based camp City Kickboxing. The 36-year-old ex-kickboxer has fallen on hard times as of late, dropping four straight, although two of his last four outings were for his old middleweight title.<\/p>\n

The split came effective May 20, per \u201cThe Last Stylebender,\u201d who does so a little under two months after losing to Joe Pyfer<\/a> by knockout in the UFC Seattle headliner. Per the fighter, he needed a fresh start, and most importantly, personalized training instead of being in a room full of top-ranked athletes who all vie for attention from the coaches. Adesanya claimed it had been brewing for a while, and that he still mourns the absence of the team as a main part of his life.<\/p>\n

I am not coming back to City Kickboxing<\/p>\n

Adesanya stated, \u201cSo [Wednesday, May 20], I spoke to [head coach] Eugene [Bareman] face-to-face, and I told him I am not coming back to CKB,\u201d Adesanya opened with in his video. \u201cThis was something a long time coming behind the scenes, and we have an understanding. I won\u2019t lie; it sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cGrief comes in waves for me. For most people, I\u2019ve grieved before, so this, it comes in waves. I\u2019ve had great days, but also there\u2019s days where I\u2019m like [exasperated sigh]. And it\u2019s a long time coming, I just want to get it out [of] the way because I want you to hear from the horse\u2019s mouth because no one else has spoken about it. I guess those who know are waiting for the ball to drop, so [motions a ball dropping] I dropped the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former champion was simultaneously gracious for those that helped him grow over the years and crestfallen that it was the end of an era.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bittersweet,\u201d he admitted, \u201cbut it\u2019s the right thing for me. Especially where I am at in my career, it\u2019s exactly what I needed. Insanity is doing the same s–t and expecting different results, so\u2026I think that\u2019s it, I just don\u2019t want to talk about it. It\u2019s something like I said that sucks, I want to grieve in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having a bit more to get out after all, the Nigerian-born athlete carried on, saying, \u201c[If] people want to bring it up, that\u2019s cool, don\u2019t ask me about it\u20262009 is when I first went to CKB, 2010 is when I moved over, and I established myself in Auckland to train at CKB. CKB made me into the fighter that I am today. They\u2019ve trained a lot of great fighters. Greats, even better than myself, but me as an individual, CKB made me into the fighter that I am today. But also, I was one of the main pillars who put CKB on the map on the world stage. To take it to the next level, where people from all over the world want to come train at CKB, and I\u2019m proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Glory kickboxing title challenger thanked a number of people who helped him over the years, not limited to coach Bareman and fellow fighters Cameron Rowston<\/a>, Brogan Anderson<\/a> and kickboxer Doug Viney<\/a>. Above all, he knows exactly what he needs in his next camp, and that is the personal attention of a coach who can help straighten out any issues that come up as they happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I need for myself is [holds hands pensively] focused, individual training. So, I\u2019ve made the decision to leave CKB for my own reasons, and yeah. I\u2019ll leave it at that,\u201d Adesanya concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight king Israel Adesanya is going in a new direction. Posting a video on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[243552,85,46,174953,105],"class_list":["post-534035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ckb","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-adesanya","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}