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Eugene Bareman on the blueprint for Kai Kara-France to capture UFC flyweight crown
Stephen Foote • June 24th, 2025 11:00 am
Photo: UFC
City Kickboxing sensei Eugene Bareman has barely spent a weekend at home over the past year, as he jets across the globe to far-flung fight cards to corner his burgeoning roster of professional fighters.
It's a good problem to have, one which reflects the success of his gym - perhaps no better exemplified in recent years than Kai Kara-France's shot at the flyweight title against Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 317 in Las Vegas on Sunday (NZ time), where he'll be trying to play his part in the coronation of a third UFC world champion.
A veteran of the 125lb division, Kara-France has previously contested the interim title, coming up short against eventual champion Brandon Moreno back in 2022.
This time around, he'll face one of the most dominant and longest tenured belt-holders across the entire promotion, with the Brazilian attempting to defend the title he's held since July 2023 for the fourth time.
"I know what it takes to get yourself in a position where you can fight for that title. It's very, very difficult," Bareman told Sport Nation's Fight Club podcast.
"It's really difficult to do once, let alone twice.
"Kai's obviously already previously had a shot, and most people in their career only get one shot at it, and Kai's managed to crawl his way back to a second title shot, so we've really got to make this one count."
Eugene Bareman on the stakes involved in Kai Kara-France winning the UFC flyweight world title | Fight Club
It's a potential crowning moment in a long-standing relationship. Bareman has been by Kara-France's side for the majority of his 37-fight career, which dates all the way back to 2010.
But it was a certain fight on a regional card in Melbourne against another Brazilian - Rodolfo Marques - in 2017, when he realised he had something special on his hands in the ambitious young Aucklander.
En route to a straightforward decision loss and with fewer than 30 seconds remaining in the bout, Kara-France landed one his now patented overhand rights in the fight to shut his opponent's lights out.
"That was a kind of a light bulb moment for me," he recalls. "I was like, man, this guy can do some things that not a lot of people can.
The clear intentions of Kai Kara-France | UFC x betcha Feature
"There's some special gifts here that can take him to the top of the world."
Bareman's education took that raw potential and has helped refine it into one of the most dangerous combatants in a flyweight division of which Kara-France has been part of the bedrock.
Eight years later, that mountain top lays right in front of them both - its path blocked by the force of nature that is Pantoja.
Over his past seven fights, the 35-year-old has proved a puzzle too difficult to solve for both grappling and striking specialists alike, with his suffocating back control, limitless gas tank and pressure forming a lethal combination in the Octagon.
The pair have fought previously as part of The Ultimate Fighter reality show back in 2016, a two-round decision win for Pantoja that provides very little of substance for either camp - both men now considerably improved fighters.
Eugene Bareman | Photo: Photosport
The one aspect where Kara-France will have the clear upper hand will be in the striking department, where his one-touch knockout power which is a rarity at flyweight.
The challenge now is putting him in position to use the significant advantage it provides, which Bareman says has been a core emphasis throughout training camp.
"I'll focus on putting Kai in different positions where he can use some of his best attributes to win this fight. Most people know when I talk about that, I'm talking about his power.
"Kai has a very unique gift amongst that weight class and he has that special ability to really hurt someone and put someone out, that a lot of people in that really small division don't have.
"A lot of our focus has just been on formulating a game plan that puts Kai in as many different opportunities to land that special gift as we can possibly give him in that 25 minutes."
Leaning down the classic path of striker vs grappler, Bareman notes the definitive factor in the fight will be who can impose their strategy the earliest and most consistently.
"(Kara-France) is a guy with a lot of power who prefers to stand up, who prefers to accumulate damage and break you down. At the same time he's accumulating that damage and breaking you down, he can finish you at any time.
"(Pantoja) is a human buzzsaw that just keeps coming and coming and coming at you, and he's relentless. No matter how many takedowns you stuff he's going to keep shooting and he and he is very dangerous if we let him get behind us. If we let them get behind our elbows, if we put hooks in he's gonna be dangerous and he'll be hard to beat."
Questions have been raised about Kara-France's ability to keep pace with Pantoja over the course of five rounds, a distance he's fought to just once in his UFC career.
Bareman rejects any such theory. In fact, they like their fighter's chances the deeper the bout goes, where he says the attributes that make Kara-France "one of the fittest athletes" he's ever trained could play a huge part in the contest's outcome.
"Kai is a five round fighter. Kai does well over three rounds, but he does even better over five. Kai builds up energy as he goes through the fight, especially if it's five rounds.
Alexandre Pantoja | Photo: UFC
"Pantoja, in many respects, he's the same, but he fatigues at a different level to Kai.
"When it gets to the fourth and the fifth you're going to have two relatively tired men, but they're not going to be tired at the same level. I believe Kai will be able to push that a little bit harder than Pantoja will.
"We're not afraid of the fourth or fifth round, that's where we want to take it."
Having trained two UFC world champions in Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkavanovski, Bareman is well aware what's required to get over that hump - where the mental aspect becomes almost equally important as the physical.
Which is why, all the way up until the Octagon is locked shut in Vegas on Sunday, he'll be in Kara-France's ear reminding him of the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices he's had to make to reach this hallowed ground - and the 'whys' behind that drive.
"Constantly reminding him of the work that he's done. Reminding him what's at stake. Reminding him of all the ups and downs that he has had on this journey, all the adversity that he's faced.
"Letting him understand that we haven't trained for eight to 12 weeks this fight. We've been training for this fight since the day that he stepped on this planet.
"Everything that we've done, everything that we faced from the moment that he took his first breath to now, has been training for that one moment."
"Kai's managed to channel his family into a positive thing for his career. He's managed to use it as motivation. He's become a wonderful young man, and he's the breadwinner for his family, and he is the provider for his family, and that's reflected in his professionalism towards the sport."
Listen to the full interview below:
