Gilbert Burns was one of the few fighters who tried to help Leon Edwards beat Kamaru Usman in their fight this past August.
Edwards beat Usman in their last fight and then they had a trilogy at UFC 286. This time, Edwards won again but this time it was through a five-round decision rather than a knockout like last time. So he proved that his victory wasn’t just luck — he got the job done!
Burns admitted that Usman was still upset from being knocked out in the first fight. And this might have affected his performance in the trilogy.
According to Burns, Leon had the best strategy to fight against Kamaru. Leon used a lot of kicks during the fight since he has great kick skills. He kicked low and then body kicks which hurt Kamaru so much that he was too worried about getting hit on his head. Apart from this, Leon also used lateral movements (moving sideways) as well as knees and throws which helped him defend against takedowns. In the end, all these moves drained Kamaru’s energy until he couldn’t fight anymore.
I think Leon did the best he could in his fight against Kamaru, and on the other hand, I think Kamaru wasn’t really mentally prepared. He was way too worried about a head kick. You could clearly see that, from knowing Kamaru personally, at the start of the fight he wasn’t attacking as much. He stopped feinting after one knee, and he seemed to be relying more on power than speed.
Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns spent many years training together in Florida. Then, they agreed to fight each other and Kamaru moved his camp out to Colorado where he worked with coach Trevor Wittman. Although things changed, Kamaru still did really well under the new coach.
However, Burns noticed that the one thing stopping Usman from beating Edwards was his inability to take him down often enough.
Burns said he felt like Kamaru was not performing at his best and that his strong wrestling skills were lacking. Burns said he isn’t trying to criticize Kamaru because he thinks Kamaru is still one of the best fighters ever and a dominant champion. However, on the other hand, Leon was doing amazingly during this match. That’s why he won in the end.
Burns noticed immediately that something was wrong with Usman while they were wrestling. He wasn’t sure why Usman was having a hard time, but he knew something wasn’t right.
Burns said that it may have been the body kicks that were bothering Kamaru. Even though Leon did really well too, Burns’ wrestling coach – Greg Jones – made sure to train them to commit fully when taking a guy down and make him suffer for it as that was one of Kamaru’s best techniques. To Burns, something didn’t seem quite right with this technique during the match.
“We can’t tell if his performance was affected by anything, but he didn’t seem to be as good as he used to be.”
Even though Usman won the fight, Burns isn’t sure if it makes it any easier for him to win the title.
In fact, Colby Covington was already chosen for a title shot so Burns is worried that Usman’s victory wasn’t really helpful for his own career path.
I’m happy for Leon because he had a tough time lately. There were the Coronavirus outbreak and the lockdown, then he fought with Tyron Woodley. The same thing happened with Khamzat Chimaev and Belal Muhammad. Even though all these struggles he had been through, it’s great to see that Leon has achieved success.
I’m not really happy about the outcome of Kamaru’s win against Leon because I thought he might retire if he won. That would make it easier to get the title since Leon has already lost and Kamaru retired. But at least someone had to win, so Leon did a great job but I still have a lot of work to do.
