Coach Eugene Bareman reacts to accusations made against Islam Makhachev following UFC 284: “Something’s going on there, we just can’t reliably say what it is”

Coach Eugene Bareman is reacting to the accusations made against Islam Makhachev following UFC 284.

Last weekend saw Islam Makhachev (24-1 MMA) vs Alexander Volkanovski (25-2 MMA) battle it out for the lightweight championship title. The result was a unanimous decision win for Makhachev.

Following the fight, Dan Hooker (Volkanovski’s kickboxing teammate) accused the champion of illegally using an IV to rehydrate, and called him a cheat.

City Kickboxing coach Eugene Bareman shared his thoughts on the controversy while speaking on ‘The MMA Hour‘ last night:

“We have reliable information to a point. I will half plead the fifth. Can you half plead the fifth? The two and a half? The information falls short because for several reasons, and one of them is that you can actually take an IV before a fight. It just has to be 100 ml of saline every 12 hours, in a 12-hour block. So what it has to come down to is whether you believe that people are going to take this saline, 100 ml, and then stop.”

Continuing Bareman said:

“And the fact that from that team there were two fighters from that same team and the information can’t reliably tell us yet which fighter illegally hydrated or whether they went over 100 ml. But I don’t know, no information can tell us without a doubt that someone in their team used an IV badge to rehydrate, which is not illegal if you used 100 ml. You’ve just got to ask yourself if it’s only 100 ml you’ve got to use for 12 hours, why would you even bother?”

Currently, according to USADA guidelines, IV infusions and/or injections that exceed 100 ml during a 12-hour period are prohibited.

Following the accusation made by Hooker, Islam Makhachev’s co-manager, Rizvan Magomedov took to ‘Twitter’ with this response:

“Jealous losers spreading lies, eventually this is all you can do.”

Magomedov aslo told ‘MMA Junkie’:

“We all know this is completely B.S. (Hooker) is a loser. He’s salty and just looking for attention, and that’s it.”

Coach Bareman continued, sharing he’d advised Dan Hooker not to run with the accusation:

“I advised Dan against even talking about it. Look, as you can see, that information has holes in it, that’s what I’m alluding to, but also there’s enough information there for to be like, ‘Eeeh…’ This is why Alex and the rest of the team are laughing because we’re like, something’s going on there, we just can’t reliably say what it is.”

“It’s frustrating because the whole sport should be played on an even playing field. Then again, you can’t reliably say that Islam cheated, so I wouldn’t go out there and say that in the manner that Dan did. That’s just—I don’t think you can reliable say that. But something was going on there.”

Concluding, while Bareman does believe ‘somethings gone on there’, he also congratulated the winners and professed his pride in Alex Volkanovski:

“Either it was Zubaira or whether it was Islam, something’s gone on there. If it was Zubaira and not Islam, then Islam should be distanced. If anyone on my team was doing something illegal, then I would immediately distance the team from that person. Maybe something will come out in the wash, maybe it won’t, but I think the more important thing is to focus on the fight and not worry about that so much. And the fight was — what a fight.”

“Congratulations to Islam and Javier and his other coaches who I’m not so familiar with, but congratulations to those guys, they won. And congratulations to Alex. I’m super proud of Alex and what he was able to do and we’ll move on. Give us the next big challenge because that’s what these guys do.”

What do you think of Baremans’ comments? Would you like to the the USADA and UFC investigate the accusations or just get back to the business of fighting?

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