2023-09-07 16:22:31
A week after the unforgettable evening of UFC Paris, the biggest organization in MMA welcomes a new Frenchman, Kevin Jousset, who will face Kiefer Crosbie this weekend in Melbourne in the preliminary fights of UFC 293 (in live at 12:30 a.m. on the night of Saturday to Sunday on RMC Sport 2). Portrait of the former judoka who became a training partner (and friend) of the middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya.
Israel Adesanya gets up to hug her before pushing the song. “Go Blues! Go Blues!” The famous UFC champion of -84 kilos did not become a supporter of the French football team overnight. But he won’t miss an opportunity to show his love to the “Frenchie” in his room, his training partner and his pal. Especially when he has just signed up with the UFC. Video of coach Eugene Bareman announcing Kevin Jousset (8-2, 30) his signing to the biggest MMA organization on the planet – where he will face Irishman Kiefer Crosbie on the preliminary card on his debut this weekend of UFC 293 – under the cheers of his most famous pupil recalled how much the new Frenchman of the UFC had a special career. Fascinating.
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Originally from the Alps, Jousset began his adventure in combat sports with judo. “Like many kids, I started because I had a little too much energy,” he said in early June in an interview with RMC Sport. Two years at the Pôle Espoir in Rennes, two at the Pôle France in Bordeaux, went to Paris to train “with the biggest names in the discipline” at INEF and INSEP, the boy climbed the floors and ended up hang a medal at the French championships. A major shoulder injury (complete dislocation) puts him on the sidelines and triggers a reflection on the future. “I felt like I didn’t really want to train in judo like that anymore if you want to reach the highest level. I thought it was time to move on. C It was difficult because I had done this all my life. I didn’t know what to do.”
Jousset has just passed his twenties and is saying goodbye to the passion that has driven him for so long. But life will put him back on the path to battle. After a big year and a half in Great Britain “to learn English”, he takes off for Australia to “see something else”. A meeting will change the destiny of the one who passes a diploma of physical trainer in parallel: “He advised me to put myself in MMA, told me who that the guys who did judo were good in this discipline. After fifteen years to get good at judo, I said to myself, ‘Forget it, it’s too late’. But I ended up following his advice.”
And no question of doing things by halves. “I got straight into it full time. I did a training session or two, I saw that I liked it a lot. In grappling, so judo, jiu-jitsu and wrestling, I already had a very high level. advanced compared to a lot of them My feet-fists weren’t at all good compared to them because I had never done any but I really thought the level was achievable if I really put in 100 % so that’s what I did. It gave me a real challenge and I like to set myself challenges.” Jousset quickly fell in love with his new, much more diversified discipline. “I loved the freedom, the fact of having so many possibilities. You can never get tired of it. You always have things to improve on.”
We recommend the Absolute MMA room in Melbourne. Where he meets some very beautiful people in 2016: Alexander Volkanovski, current UFC -66 kg champion, and Craig Jones, one of the best grappling specialists in the world, with whom he tours “several times a week”. He spent four years in Australia to progress. But its future will be written on the other side of the Tasman Sea. Direction Auckland and New Zealand. “I heard about the City Kickboxing gym, which at the time wasn’t as big as it is now. I just went there because I knew they had some good guys in feet- fists. I got on really well with the whole team and they offered me to come there full time. And I’ve been there for more than three and a half years.” Meanwhile, the boy kicked off his MMA career with two amateur fights in 2018 before jumping to the pros in 2019 in local HEX Fight Series and Eternal MMA.
In his third fight, he faces… Jack Della Maddalena, today fourteenth in the ranking of challengers at -77 kilos (his category) at the UFC. For a defeat, his first, on stoppage of the doctor. “He was supposed to defend his belt in another organization, in Melbourne, where I was living, but the guy he was supposed to fight got injured a week before the fight and they offered me to fight. I was at 2- 0 and I was coming back from a friend’s wedding in New York. But I assume that the opportunities are always good to take and that you never know when you will have others so I did not even think thirty seconds .The first round was pretty tight.In the second, I took an elbow on the ground and it opened my arch.The doctor came to the cage before the third and did not allow me to resume. I didn’t agree but those are the rules of the game. I hope to fight this guy again in the UFC. It would be a nice revenge to take.”
Seven fights later, at the end of May 2023, Jousset took two belts at HEX, in -77 and -84 kilos. HEX? The organization where a certain Israel Adesanya had won the under-84 title just before signing with the UFC. With that resume, a management team that also manages Adesanya and Volkanovski (among other UFC fighters) and an Adesanya that sends a video directly to Dana White and the organization’s matchmakers after his last fight, the road to the UFC seems open. Jousset dreams of debuting in Paris in front of his family and friends. It will finally be Sydney, not far from his other home.
“After my last fight, I was 99% sure that I was going to fight in Paris, he explains in a new interview with RMC Sport. That’s what they had implied to my manager. I prepared for it but as the weeks went by, with my name not coming up, the card starting to fill up, I said to myself, ‘I have a feeling this is not going to happen. “It started to stress me out a little bit. In the end, they put a Frenchman against an Irishman in Australia when it would surely have made more sense to do it in France. But I’m very happy to have had the call of the UFC. Being on a numbered event is a crazy experience. I watched UFC Paris and it made me want to but I know it will be a thing that will happen in the future .”
While the French MMA public knows him very little, the thing is undoubtedly a blessing in disguise to allow him to develop his notoriety before performing in his country. In Australia, with a short plane trip to make (three hours), his entire club by his side (six members of City Kickboxing are on the card) and even a few members of his family who will make the trip, Jousset will know ideal conditions for his debut. Where UFC fans will discover a style steeped in his judo past, which earned him the nickname “Air” – which he shares with Canadian Charles Jourdain in the UFC (“Il va faut qu’ he changes”, he laughs) – for his spectacular and aerial takedowns.
“It’s a different style from the others, in the sense that I have kickboxing skills due to the room where I train. We are very good on the distance, on our defense not to get hit too much. We’re very smart in our approach to combat, we know how to inflict damage without taking too much. Tactically, we’re quite good at the fight plans. And with my background, when people come a little too close, I I have great judo takedowns. And on the ground, I feel very good too. I’m quite complete. I also like to use my elbows when the guy in front is a little too aggressive too.” And to conclude with a smile on a formula that hits home: “What does someone see who is watching me fight for the first time? A lot of blood. And often it’s not mine.”
Perfect use of the jab and kicks, mastery of distance management, Jousset has made the strengths of his room his own, an ideal setting for progressing on the feet-fists. “You should have seen me before I got to the room and now. The difference is crazy. I don’t really take damage anymore and that’s down to knowing how to control the distance. That’s one of the things that we work as a priority. In the long term, it can only be beneficial because the goal is to fight for a good time and my brain is intact at the end of my career. Accompanied in his progress by Adesanya and all the UFC fighters from City Kickboxing (we can mention Dan Hooker, Carlos Ulberg or Mike Mathetha), but also by Volkanovski or Jones when they hang around (the second even invited him for a month to train at home in Texas in 2021), the Frenchman has everything to exploit his potential to the fullest.
“His grappling and his judo have always been there, judge Volkanovski at the microphone of RMC Sport. And his striking is improving. It’s very exciting for him.” Very good friends with Adesanya – whom he met in 2018 in Australia and whom he accompanied on several of his fights – but also Ulberg or Mathetha, his camp has a crazy density. Which invites progress. “I don’t necessarily realize it because my career has grown around these guys and I know them as friends, their private life and all that. But if I look, quality-wise, I’m pretty lucky. J I have really great guys to train with. With Adesanya, we are almost the same weight so we train every day together and it creates bonds. There is a similarity with Adesanya on the striking, even if each has his style. But I also feel very good in the clinch, because judo is a sport where you are in close combat, which is not the thing for kickboxers. Touring with Izzy? It sends hard, yes, but don’t worry, it returns hard too!”
Legend even has it that he hurt the -84-kilogram champion very badly in one session… It doesn’t matter. What happens in sparring should stay in sparring. But seeing Eugene Bareman share this anecdote shows what he thinks of his French colt. Double champion at HEX, Jousset intends to settle in the UFC in -77 kilos, a category where the current champion is called Leon Edwards (“He deserves it given his technical qualities”) and where he has “no worries to do the weight”. With a big appetite: “There’s not a guy in the top 10 that I wouldn’t want to fight”. The one who admits to asking the question of a possible return to France in a few years – “It will be necessary to have the right contacts to know where to settle to have a good team like mine in New Zealand or to open my room in the south of France” (where he returns every two years, the last time in June) – does not go there by four paths.
“The goal is clearly to be a champion. I train with champion guys in the UFC and I know what I’m worth against them. I continue to progress every day at a very fast speed. I give myself the means , I train harder than most guys, I sacrifice everything I need to sacrifice to progress and I know it will continue to pay off.” He intends to prove it for his debut against Crosbie, a “fairly aggressive” opponent against whom Jousset imagines “a good war and a fight where we will have to remain intelligent because he takes a lot of risks and does not hesitate to take one to return one and do damage”, all in a three-round format that will benefit his cardio after the last two fights fought in five rounds. “I’ve fought more experienced and better guys than him. As long as I stay focused, I’m confident. I think I’ll win in the second round.”
He can then enjoy the end of the trip with his City Kickboxing “family”. “The whole club is here but we are all very professional. We all have goals to achieve. But, on Sunday, after having won all our fights, it will be summer camp. (Smile.)” Accustomed to the atmosphere of the UFC for having accompanied his friends in the organization, the Frenchman does not take the gigantism of the organization head on. His premiere hasn’t passed yet but he can’t wait to do it again. “It’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to get to the UFC as soon as possible. In Oceania, I struggle to find fights, there are very few guys who have agreed to fight me. But there There are a lot of welterweights in the UFC. The goal is to win this weekend and then get back in the cage before the end of the year and be active. Having four or five fights a year is the aim.” If one of them can take place at the next UFC Paris, Kevin Jousset will certainly not say no.
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