Former UFC welterweight title challenger Gilbert Burns is confident that his fellow countryman and former UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira would beat the top lightweight contender Islam Makhachev.
Charles Oliveira was supposed to defend his lightweight title against Justin Gaethje at UFC 274 earlier this month. However, the Brazilian was stripped of his title after he failed to make weight. Nonetheless, Charles Oliveira defeated Justin Gaethje via submission in the first round and is now the top contender to fight for the vacant lightweight title. The other front-runner for the title is Islam Makhachev. While Oliveira is riding on an eleven-fight winning streak, Islam is on a ten-fight winning streak of his own.
Gilbert Burns, who is also a BJJ blackbelt is liking what he is seeing from Charles Oliveira so far and praised the lightweight phenom for his techniques.
“It’s so good, so technical, so beautiful,” Burns told in an interview. “You see the techniques, whenever you see the techniques, you stop and look and the details are so sharp, the momentum.
“The guillotine, he almost got a guillotine and then whenever he knocked Justin down he went to a scramble and then a reversed triangle – almost got it. Whenever he saw he was losing the position, he was already on the back. And I know Justin Gaethje put in a lot of work. He brought in Jorge Santiago, who’s one of Kamaru (Usman)’s trainers. He’s very high level. I trained with Jorge a couple of times. I know Jorge put a tremendous time working with Justin and the guy put him out in one minute.
“He did the same thing with Dustin Poirier; almost broke Tony Ferguson’s arm, no one does Tony like that. Tony lost a couple of times, but not on the grappling. The guy is super technical, a lot of submissions – guillotines, leg locks, armbars. Whenever he takes your back, he’s so long, that that body triangle. He’s on a different level.”
Charles Oliveira will beat Islam Makhachev
Gilbert Burns also stated that Charles Oliveira will have no problem defeating Khabib’s best friend and protege Islam Makhachev.
“Islam is a high-level grappler as well,” Burns said. “I heard from Luke Rockhold and a few other guys as well that he’s pretty good. I’m still going to put all my money on Oliveira. I think Oliveira got it.”