Gilbert
Burns plans on digging deep into his bag of tricks to eject
Michael
Morales from the ranks of the unbeaten.
While Burns (22-8) enters his match with Morales (17-0) on a
three-fight skid, the vaunted grappler still remains a
ranked welterweight. The two 170ers plan on crossing swords at
the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada, as part of
UFC 315 on May 10. The 38-year-old told Sherdog that he has
shaken some issues that plagued him in recent camps, and that his
training partners have made him a more complete fighter as of late.
He also weighed in on the landscape of his division and gave his
thoughts on a few key matchups the Ultimate Fighting Championship is planning.
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“I had some problems in the previous camps,” Burns admitted, “but
now, I’m doing very well, and there are still six weeks until the
fight. He has a [two-meter, or 79-inch] reach, and in my gym, I
have a lot of sparring partners helping me with similar
characteristics, such as Jason
Jackson, who is also very long and fights next week; Kamaru
Usman, Dilano
Taylor and Vicente
Luque have also helped me a lot.”
Even though the multiple-time mundials champ has enjoyed throwing
hands since moving up in weight, the plan for “Durinho” is to stick
what got him to the dance.
“I don’t have much to hide, my game will be to take him down, smash
him and submit,” Burns said matter-of-factly. “He’s undoubtedly a
great talent, but he doesn’t have the experience I have from facing
so many top fighters in the division. The goal is to crush him and
finish him.”
While there still remains a logjam when it comes to championship
matches at welterweight, the rest of the division has been churning
lately, presenting fresh matchups for the Brazilian. Donning his
matchmaker cap for a moment, Burns laid out the fights he believes
should be made at 170 pounds.
For starters, Sean Brady,
who recently beat both Burns and Leon
Edwards, should face his training partner Shavkat
Rakhmonov next. In his opinion, the winner of that should be
the next to fight for the belt, after the fight between Belal
Muhammad and Jack
Della Maddalena. Having already fought against Muhammad, Brady
and Della Maddalena while training directly with Rakhmonov, the
Brazilian is betting that the Kazakh will win the next two very
tough challenges and conquer the division’s throne.
“These are all great and very even fights,” he continued, “which
will be decided by the details, but I see Rakhmonov beating Brady,
Belal beating Della Maddalena. The fight between Belal and
Rakhmonov will be very, very tough and hard to predict. Shavkat has
very good boxing and grappling, Belal has evolved a lot in the last
few years. For me, this is really 50-50, but if I had to choose, I
think Shavkat will win.”
The 38-year-old was practically beaming when breaking down some of
the fights that could be made. Even though he has fought several of
the best athletes the division offered, he celebrated the fact that
the division is as active and “on fire” like it hasn’t been for
some time.
“I’m happy that the division is rotating,” he remarked. “In
addition to all these fights, there’s me against Morales and
[Carlos]
Prates against [Geoff] Neal.
There’s also Usman, Ian Garry,
Colby
[Covington], [Joaquin]
Buckley who don’t have any fights scheduled.”
After surveying his own weight class, Burns turned to his former
division, where he pondered how well ex-champ Ilia
Topuria would fare going up 10 pounds to meet Islam
Makhachev.
“Ilia spent some time training here with us when he fought Josh Emmett
before fighting for the belt and I was really impressed not only by
his size, so much so that I asked him how he managed to beat 145,
but mainly by his technical level. He did one of the best sparring
matches I’ve ever seen in my life with Paul
Hughes. And I’ve seen [Vitor]
Belfort, [Alistair]
Overeem, Anthony
Johnson, Rashad
[Evans]. It was really incredible, and Paul Hughes just fought
for the Bellator belt with Usman
Nurmagomedov in Bellator in a very even fight.”
Rather than continuing to skirt around the topic, Burns dove in,
breaking down how he thinks Topuria could demonstrate success
against the Russian juggernaut. That idea might be additionally
bolstered if the rumors from Kill Cliff FC are true, that Topuria
will be joining that Florida-based camp ahead of his next
outing.
“In addition to his movement and knockout power, Topuria has
excellent wrestling,” Burns assessed. “I saw him training with some
fighters from Dagestan and Chechnya here and the guys didn’t do
anything. He even took some of them down. And if someone took him
down, [they] couldn’t keep him down. Obviously, it’s a tough fight,
but from what I saw here, I believe Topuria can become lightweight
champion.”
Some have wondered whether Makhachev himself will try to relocate
weight divisions, potentially moving up to take on new threats.
Count Burns among those.
“I think Makhachev is waiting for the results of Belal and Della
Maddalena. If Belal loses, he’ll move up, but if [Belal] wins,
he’ll stay at lightweight, so this fight could happen,” Burns
analyzed.
Finally, Burns had a few thoughts on countryman and former light
heavyweight champ Alex
Pereira, who recently suffered a decision loss to Magomed
Ankalaev to surrender his belt. “Durinho” suggested that
Pereira’s excess commitments caused him to have problems losing
weight, which ultimately led to his downfall.
“I don’t train with him and I can’t say for sure, but the
impression I have from following him on social media is that he
already had a series of commitments scheduled in different places
around the world, and this is in the middle of an important camp,
which obviously impacts his body. Constant changes in circadian
rhythm lower the immune system. I saw when he showed his weight on
Sunday, the week of the event, [it was not good]. He had a lot to
lose, without a doubt the weight cut was heavy, more than 10% than
the UFC says is safe. I really think that if ‘Poatan’ is 100% in
the rematch, he will behave differently and it will be difficult
for Ankalaev to hold him back,” Burns concluded.