Deerfield Beach, Florida:
Normally in a fight camp, a fighter relies heavily on his teammates to move and act like the upcoming opponent. Sometimes though; a fighter brings in outside help. But, it’s never really secretive who the mimic is. For this battle; Burns brings in unnamed sparring partners. And that’s the way he’s keeping it.
Recently MORNING KOMBAT hosts Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell went down to Sanford MMA to chat with Gilbert Burns about how to get ready for a fight against the red hot Khamzat Chimaev. And although he played things closer to the vest than a seasoned Texas Hold ’em Poker Pro, he did say:
“A couple of things they put in my game, especially the cage control. And another thing; the need to get a long guy, a wrestler. Not an American wrestler, a Russian wrestler, with the Russian system. Like trying to take me down, hold onto my legs, controlling, and long. So the way I see; I need to be in that position a couple of times”.
And this all went down after former teammate, champion Kamaru Usman spent some time sparring him as well.
Burns Brings In Unnamed Fighters, But The List’s Short That Fit
Both Usman, and Burns are under the Ali Abdelaziz management company DominanceMMA. As is a certain former lightweight champion; and frankly most UFC Dagestani’s. Having Khabib Nurmagomedov or Islam Makhachev, or the rest of the SMESH-Factory fits. They’re the best of the best of Sambo fighters.
And on the Bellator side of things, the Nemkov Brothers, as well as Fedor Emelianenko himself could have possibly been brought in. They’d be able to help more with the pure speed, power, and ground and pound that Burns is going to face April 9th. Let’s face it; you can’t find anyone more relentless than Chimaev right now.
A win for him, and he either gets a title shot, or Usman will demand he go through Covington first. Now; why would they want to specifically make demands to remain anonymous? Quite simply, because of present world affairs. And any fears, whether real or imagined are legit.
Although Chimaev now hails from Sweden, he’s Chechen. And if you go back to when he talked retirement, it was Warlord/Dictator Ramzan Kadyrov throwing his two-cents in, saying he’s far from retiring. Leading to much speculation that he highly invested financially in the 27-year old two-division star.
Throw in that Kadyrov’s on the Vladimir Putin payroll; and you’re talking about people that don’t like being crossed. A good reason to want to keep it quiet you’re helping a Brazilian try to defeat a Chechen/Swede. It also might be a reason why no Russian athlete has spoken out against Putin. They’d rather not just disappear, or have worse done to family. Something that happens there.
Moreover, you have to wonder if those anonymous training partners will be with Burns fight week, or cage-side. Making it hard to stay unknown, even if wearing a WWE wrestling mask.
