In an interview with TMZ, Gilbert Burns revealed that Kamaru Usman helped him prepare for his bout against Khamzat Chimaev that takes place this Saturday at UFC 273. I found this to be a pretty interesting development considering this all takes place within the welterweight division where Kamaru Usman is the champion and has risen to the number on pound for pound spot in both the UFC's rankings and my personal rankings. I'm going to talk about this from the perspective of Usman and Burns separately, so let's get into it.
For Gilbert Burns, this makes all the sense in the world. At this point, we know Chimaev wants to come out and wrestle and control the position from the top. From there he can decide to go with his ground and pound or pass guard and look for submissions. In most cases, Burns has the BJJ prowess to deter wrestlers from sitting in his guard. For better or for worse, I don't think that will be Chimaev's strategy. He's confident enough in himself that he doesn't care what someone's strength or weakness is. He's going to come out and do whatever he decides he wants and I think that will probably be getting Burns to the ground. Despite his jiu-jitsu skills, Burns overall wrestling game lacks at times. He doesn't land his own takedowns with any type of efficiency and doesn't stop takedowns at a high clip either. Part of this may be due to how comfortable he is off his back, but I think that strategy will come back to hurt him if he's too comfortable fighting from his back in this one. That is exactly where Kamaru Usman comes into play. Burns said that it was more of a coaching thing rather than a sparring or training session type of help, which makes sense because Usman is still recovering from surgery. Regardless, Usman is still one of the highest level fighters we have in this sport and his most natural discipline is wrestling. When preparing to take on a wrestler, there are few people in the world who are more qualified to give advice, especially in MMA wrestling than Kamaru Usman. Of course, Usman and Burns were long time training partners and might even go as far as to call each other friends, so the help isn't as random as it may seem, but it is still a little odd. The pair are only one fight removed from when Burns challenged Usman for his welterweight championship in a bout that felt pretty tense heading into fight week. The rumors were that Burns had somewhat consistently gotten the better of Usman in their training sessions and Burns seemed confident going in. He hurt Usman in the opening exchanges, but after that initial push, Usman would dominate his way to a third round TKO victory. I'm glad that all of that seems to be behind them, at least for now and that they have resumed their friendship. Burns seems to be doing everything in his power to be prepared for Chimaev, which only makes Saturday's fight more exciting.
As for Kamaru Usman, things are a little strange in this scenario for him. On the surface, all of this seems pretty normal. Even though he no longer trains at that gym, it isn't uncommon for fighters to maintain relationships and continue to train together or help each other out. Considering that Usman and Burns were always similar in size (Burns was a lightweight and then came up to welterweight), they probably sparred quite often and built somewhat of a closer relationship. Having someone you know so well prepare for one of the biggest fights of their career and needing to prepare for Usman's own area of expertise is the perfect storm. Under normal circumstances, it probably would have been more weird for Usman not to help him out. However, it is impossible to ignore the direct implications that this fight has on Usman's own career. If Khamzat wins this fight, he is at most one more fight away from challenging for Usman's title. Honestly, it almost feels inevitable that Leon Edwards finds himself screwed over yet again and unable to get the title shot, but that is for another day. To be clear, I am most certainly not implying that Usman is ducking Leon because that is ridiculous, but I do think he is more interested in a bigger fight, which Khamzat would clearly be. However, offering assistance to Burns will only help him win and keep Khamzat away from the title shot. Now, again, I am not suggesting that Usman is afraid of Khamzat or anything of the sort, but at the same time, he seems to stand out as the next toughest test. I think Usman would much prefer a rematch with Burns or a fight against Vicente Luque or Belal Muhammad in terms of fights that are much easier for him to win. Kamaru Usman had to weigh the possibilities in his mind and decide whether he would rather have the smaller, but easier fights or the bigger pay day in the short term. Of course, "easier" is all relative here. Saying that Luque or Belal are easy fights would be blatantly incorrect, but I don't see either of them as being as good as Khamzat right now. By trying to help Burns defeat Khamzat, it seems as though Usman much prefers those other fights than having to go through Khamzat in the immediate future. Now, it seems inevitable that Usman will have to go through Khamzat eventually, but a loss Saturday would delay that to some degree.
What do you guys think? How do you interpret this situation? Is this simply a friend helping a friend? Or do you read more into this? Let me know how you see this and any thoughts you have in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one. The previews for this weekend are coming next, so be on the lookout for those.
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