City Kickboxing may see themselves as an "old warehouse on the edge of Auckland City" but the mixed martial arts world views them as one of the best — and that status is about to elevate this weekend.
UFC 293 on Sunday features six City Kickboxing athletes on the fight card: Tyson Pedro, Shane Young, Mike "Blood Diamond" Mathetha, Carlos Ulberg, Kevin Jousset and UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
It's the most fighters from a single gym in UFC history — a feat Vice President of UFC Australia and New Zealand, Peter Kloczko said reflects City Kickboxing's status in the MMA world.
"City Kickboxing has emerged as this regional hub and one of these super MMA gyms that we typically see in the US," Kloczko said.
"It's not very common to have one gym that's so largely represented in one UFC event so it's really testament to the quality of athletes coming out of that gym but particularly of this region.
"For them to demonstrate and to show their athletes in their own backyard, it must be a great celebratory moment for them."
The feat is even more impressive when City Kickboxing is compared to those "super gym" rivals, founder and trainer Eugene Bareman told 1News.
"You could compare us only in respect to our notoriety," Bareman said.
"We get a lot of coverage nowadays because we have a lot of quality fighters coming out of our gym but those super gyms are very different to my gym — those are gyms that are supported by millions of dollars and a massive infrastructure.
"We built this ourselves, we're just in an old warehouse on the edge of Auckland City [but] those guys are in, like, super, duper three-storey high gyms with the latest equipment and all sorts of scientists working for them."
But that humble environment is central to City Kickboxing's identity, Bareman believes.
"We wouldn't be as successful as we are if we had all those resources to us," he said.
"It's the fact that we had to No.8 wire it, do it all ourselves, and explore all these avenues ourselves that's made us who we are so I probably wouldn't have it any other way."
Since its establishment in 2007, City Kickboxing has grown to be a global attractor of professional fighting hopefuls who get to rub shoulders with MMA stars such as Adesanya and Dan Hooker.
Frenchman Jousset was one of those ambitious fighters four years ago, coming to New Zealand to see the gym having taken judoka since he was four before becoming a black belt at 14.
He never left and now at 30, he's finally getting his shot in the UFC in a welterweight fight against Irishman Kiefer Crosbie.
"I've been living all over the world — I was living in Australia just before and I came here for the first time for training camp [looking at] getting better because I knew the gym here was very good," Jousset said.
"I really loved it, felt very welcomed, loved the country, loved the people and the gym obviously so I decided to move here full-time."
Jousset said that welcoming feeling he got on day one is still with him.
"I think it's like a big family — everyone's looking after each other, helping each other."
Ulberg added it's simply "the Kiwi way" as he looks to continue his four-fight winning streak against South Korean Da Un Jung in a light heavyweight contest.
"When I first started, I was looking to go abroad and go overseas and I did a bit of travel and when I did, I found out that we have everything here," Ulberg said.
"It's more about the comradery, the culture and the amount of effort that people put into the craft here.
"We've got guys that come over from overseas and give us a bit of his knowledge and we just excel from there."
It's led to Sunday's historic fight card, headlined by Adesanya's title defence against Sean Strickland.
But make no mistake, Bareman isn't just focused on the Stylebender.
"We want to win every single fight, our goal is six fights, six wins and nothing less than that will satisfy us."
Not bad for an old warehouse on the edge of Auckland City.
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