Kiwi MMA trainer Eugene Bareman says he and Israel Adesanya aren't letting yesterday's UFC title loss to Jan Blachowicz derail them while reiterating, even in hindsight, putting on weight still wasn't the best choice for his fighter.
Adesanya lost via unanimous decision in his bid to add the light heavyweight championship to his cabinet at UFC 259 with Blachowicz using his extra weight in the final rounds to grind out a win by taking the fight to the canvas.
Bareman told 1 NEWS from his Las Vegas hotel today they had reviewed the fight and accepted the result.
"We put a lot into this... so, so much goes into it but at the end of the day, you've got a put on a brave face," Bareman told 1 NEWS.
"Losing is part of the sport - unless you're Floyd Mayweather."
The City Kickboxing founder explained parts of their plan for the fight were carried out but other bits were undone by the Polish fighter.
As he explained it though, he took aim at a few of Adesanya's more vocal victims from the Nigerian-born Kiwi's rise to the top of the middleweight ranks, where he is still champion.
"It wasn't like it was a terrible execution of the plan," Bareman said.
"The plan was good. We felt like, when we look back now, what we had set in place would've worked but we lost - you can't be like Paulo Costa.
"How you lose is the true measure of a man. [If you] you lose, you lose and it's back to the drawing board for us.
"They say humble pie but my team is humble, trust me, we don't have to eat any pie... we know what to do."
One point of discussion that came up early in the build-up to yesterday's fight and has been reiterated since, especially with how Blachowicz used his size to dominate late, is whether Adesanya should've put on weight for the bout.
Adesanya was approximately 10-15kg lighter than Blachowicz in the octagon after Bareman revealed to 1 NEWS last month they wouldn't be putting on mass for the bout despite the move up in weight class.
Bareman said yesterday they stand by that decision for multiple reasons.
"You've got to say there was a better plan - if our plan didn't work and our execution of the plan didn't work then there was probably a better plan and better execution.
"Maybe it would've been smarter to put on weight... but we're always looking forward a little bit and it's very difficult to put on a lot of size and then come back down and our intention was always to come back down [to middleweight].
"Stacking on muscle and weight just wasn't an option for us and if that was the answer, if that was the plan then it was always going to be a permanent move to light heavyweight."
Bareman, Adesanya and the rest of the City Kickboxing team return to New Zealand on Thursday.
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