The UFC 273 fight week is finally around the corner with two title fights and a highly-anticipated welterweight showdown between Gilbert Burns and Khamzat Chimaev.
While most of the fans are currently riding the Khamzat Chimaev hype train, UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya has his own picks.
‘The Last Stylebender’ made a bold prediction that Gilbert Burns will be the one to score an upset victory this weekend.
On his YouTube channel, Adesanya stated that he believes ‘Durinho’ has improved tremendously:
“I know Burns. He don’t play about it. He’s real. He’s really about this life. I’m glad that he’s up at welterweight now because he’s a lot more better at this weight class… Burns is good but he gets hit. Everyone gets hit. And he’s got power on his punches. You know what, I’ll be rooting for Burns. I think he can get it done.” Adesanya said.
A veteran of 16 UFC fights, Burns had fought in both lightweight and welterweight divisions.
While his 11-fight lightweight run was respectable, winning 7 and losing 3, he won all of his welterweight bouts in the promotion except for the title fight against Kamaru Usman, which saw him losing by TKO in the 3rd round after an intense 1st where he had Usman wobbled.
Now he’s facing welterweight hype machine Khamzat Chimaev. Chimaev had a superb run in the UFC so far, winning all of his 4 fights in the promotion with finishes in the first round.
UFC 273 this weekend will be headlined by the title fight between UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and ‘The Korean Zombie’ Chan Sung Jung.
While the co-main event will be the much-anticipated title unification bout between the UFC bantamweight champion against the interim champion Petr Yan.