Gilbert Burns Keeping No Secrets in UFC 315 Fight Prep: “I Don’t Have Much to Hide”

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.

“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.