Nigeria’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman is heading for what could be his testiest and biggest title defence in The Octagon, as he steps out against Brazil’s Gilbert Burns this weekend, megasportsarena.com reports.
The day has finally come for both sluggers to battle it out on Sunday, following two previous plans for a fight that fell through in 2020, and another schedule again on the books, ahead of which fight experts believe Kamara will receive a stiff test from Burns.
Usman and Burns were teammates at Sanford MMA in Florida, following which ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ moved his camp to Denver to train with Trevor Wittman ahead of their originally-planned UFC 251 clash.
That came after talk from both men about sharing a camp while planning to face each other being awkward, but they are finally now set to meet in the main event of the UFC 258 pay-per-view on February 13.
Burns is currently riding a six-fight winning streak, including two wins in early 2020 that cemented him as a title contender and he was originally set to face Usman at UFC 251 last July July, but a positive COVID-19 test resulted in him being pulled and subsequently replaced at the last minute by Jorge Masvidal.
The fight was then booked for UFC 256 in December 2020, but it was scratched when Usman complained that he needed more time to recover from injuries before taking on the title defense.
Usman is now preparing for a testy night, as CBS reporter, Brent Brookhouse noted: “Usman won the welterweight title in March 2019, easily handling then-champion Tyron Woodley. He followed up with successful title defenses against top rivals Colby Covington and Masvidal.
“The Masvidal fight was Usman’s only bout of 2020, and drew some criticism for being dull in his smothering grappling approach, even though he dominated Masvidal while nullifying his smothering offense.
“The fight — or rather the attempts to make the fight — with Burns has somewhat halted the top end of the stacked welterweight division. But the fight is a pairing of men on lengthy winning streaks who have also completely dominated their opposition in recent years.”
Sports Yahoo combat columnist, Kevin Iole added: “Gilbert Burns was a good fighter when he was a lightweight in the UFC, but you’d have struggled to find anyone who would have pointed to him as a legitimate championship contender.
“Since moving to welterweight, though, Burns has looked every bit the championship contender. He was depleting himself trying to cut to 155 pounds, and while he was good enough to handle the rank-and-file lightweights, he wasn’t good enough to deal with world-class fighters.
“By moving to 170 pounds, his issues cutting weight have disappeared and his full range of skills is on display. He’s 4-0 since moving to welterweight for an Aug. 10, 2019, bout in Uruguay against Alexey Kunchenko.
“He’ll take the biggest step on Saturday when he challenges his friend and longtime training partner, Kamaru Usman, for the welterweight title in the main event of UFC 258 at Apex. Burns estimates he’s sparred 200 rounds with Usman, which is the equivalent of 40 main-event bouts.
“The former Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion is nonetheless a fairly significant underdog at BetMGM despite his recent success. BetMGM has Usman as a -275 favorite, while Burns is +225. Each man is 4-0 in his last four fights, and each has one finish.
“Usman finished Colby Covington in the final round of a compelling title defense at UFC 245, while Burns knocked out Demian Maia on March 14 in the first UFC fight held without fans after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.”
