Eugene Bareman, who serves as the coach of red-hot contender Israel Adesanya, is not a fan of his star pupil’s UFC 234 opponent, former UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva.

In fact, Bareman feels that, after the Brazilian’s unfortunate brushes with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Anderson Silva is basically now the “Lance Armstrong of MMA.”

“He’s the Lance Armstrong of MMA,” Bareman told Submission Radio in a recent interview (via MMA Fighting). “For me, he cheated. And I’m a very stand up guy. MMA fans, for one or another reasons, they’re not the same as cycling fans. MMA fans forget quickly when someone cheats. But I’m not like that. If you do something wrong and it’s proven and factual, then I hold that against him about it. I don’t hold it against you like I wanna beat you up, I just want nothing to do with you.

“He sits nowhere, as far as I’m concerned,” Bareman added, continuing his tirade against Anderson Silva. “He sits the same place as Lance Armstrong sits, but it’s a difference sport, different community. I completely dismiss him. I find it – I think weird is the best way to describe it – I find it weird that people talk of him in that manner. You can’t cheat in this sport, or else it brings everything you did into complete disrepute, like Lance Armstrong. How are two people who are basically guilty of the same thing treated so differently in the sporting world. Well, it’s because of the different responses that each of those fanbases give to that crime.”

What do you think of this coach’s comments on Anderson Silva?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 2/8/2019.