Shane Burgos Looking to Take Out UFC Featherweight Division ‘One at a Time’

By the look of things, Shane Burgos did virtually everything he could to topple Cub Swanson except take him out, but his heart stopped briefly when Bruce Buffer announced the winner of their fight on Saturday.

Burgos (12-1) used his long reach to outstrike Swanson over the course of three rounds in one of the featured bouts of UFC Fight Night 151. “Hurricane” busted Swanson’s face up, prevented takedowns and had the fan favorite reeling a few times when clean punches landed on his head. When the 15 minutes had concluded, Burgos didn’t really look like he had been in a fight, while Swanson’s face was a mask of lumps, bumps and bruises.

Then Buffer read the first judge’s score of 30-27 for Swanson and Burgos nearly had a stroke.

“I felt confident going to the judges, but then the first one said 30-27 for Swanson, that took me off guard,” he said after his win, which came via split decision. “I didn’t even think it was split. Maybe he won the third, but giving him every round is crazy; that’s half my money right there. I’m a little sour about it honestly, took a little away from my win.”

Thankfully the other judges were watching the fight because Burgos nabbed his well-deserved win. The win was arguably his best all-around performance inside the Octagon, was and the Team Tiger Schulmann fighter couldn’t be happier with how he fought.

“I always want a finish, but I’m happy that I could show off my technical ability a little more, my defense and my kicks,” he said. “I don’t really kick in any of my fights and they were key tonight. I was doing a lot of stance switching and showed off a lot of facets from my game, I’m not just a boxer, I’m a mixed martial artist and a damn good one.”

His triumph over Swanson was Burgos’ second in a row and it likely places him in the top 10 at featherweight. Aside from a TKO loss to Calvin Kattar last January at UFC 220, Burgos has been tearing everybody apart. The setback curtailed his ascent up the 145-pound ladder, but a win over Kurt Holobaugh and now Swanson have him right where he needs to be, which is alongside the best there is at featherweight.

“I just beat the No. 10 ranked guy in the world, so that makes me top 10, right?” he asked. “There’s no one really in those rankings that stands out to me, I’m going to have to fight them all eventually anyway, so I’ll take them all out one at a time.”