Douglas Lima wants to wear Bellator gold once again.
The three-time Bellator welterweight champion returns to the circular cage Saturday to face Aaron Jeffery in a middleweight clash at the Bellator Champions Series show in San Diego, Calif., and hopes to gain another shot at the 185-pound title with a win.
Lima heads into his first bout under the the new Bellator umbrella since PFL took over earlier this year, but said he hasn’t felt any difference in the promotion since.
“What matters to me is what happens in the cage, and that hasn’t changed,” Lima said. “I don’t care where it is. It could be in someone’s backyard or in the world’s biggest arena, we’re in the cage so it changes nothing to me. Lock us both in there and let us do our job.”
Jeffery, his opponent at the Pechanga Arena, has been victorious in 14 of 19 professional bouts, losing only to some of the world’s best, such as Sean Brady, Brendan Allen, Caio Borralho, and Fabian Edwards.
Lima has beaten the likes of Rory MacDonald, Michael Page, Andrey Koreshkov, Lorenz Larkin, and Paul Daley in 22 Bellator appearances, and rules out going back to welterweight unless the offer is too good to pass.
“It’s a tough fight, he’s good,” Lima said of Jeffery. “He throws hands and kicks in some fights, and wrestles in others. He did well against Edwards, it could have gone either way, He’s at the top and that’s exactly what I want. I wanna fight the best of the division so I can get to the top as quickly as possible. The belt is always the focus, so this fight will help get us there.”
The middleweight belt was expected to be on the line in the main event of Bellator London on Sept. 14, but the company announced earlier this week that Edwards’ rematch with champion Johnny Eblen has to be postponed to a yet-to-be-determined date due to undisclosed reasons.
“The goal is always to win a fight, no matter how,” Lima said of his upcoming match. “I need a submission, a knockout. It’s been a while since I have finished a fight, and that’s what I’m always going after. I saw [Jeffery’s] potential since his first fight in Bellator and knew he would go far in the sport. I know it’s a tough fight and I’ve trained as if it’s a title fight. The last guy he lost to is now fighting for the belt, so this fight will definitely help me get there.”
Jake Paul may have bitten off more than he can chew with his latest UFC fighter callout.
After pummeling Mike Perry back in July, “The Problem Child” tried to strike back at naysayers who (accurately) accuse him of fighting smaller men all the time. In response, he called out Alex Pereira, the two-division UFC champion who is currently running roughshod over the Light Heavyweight ranks. “Poatan” is not only a credentialed knockout artist, but he’s one of the rare athletes that seems impossibly big no matter his weight class. Unlike other past Paul opponents, Pereira is still in his prime as well.
There’s a reason why he’s a title threat in three divisions.
Obviously, UFC isn’t likely to let their active champion wander into the boxing ring against Jake Paul, particularly since Paul and UFC CEO Dana White do not get along very well. All the same, on a recent episode of the BS w/ Jake Paul podcast, former UFC Heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou strongly advised Paul against seeking the match up further. “The Predator” was very complimentary towards Pereira and told Paul to his face that the fight wouldn’t end well for him.
“He’s tough, dude, he has some tough hands,” Ngannou said of Pereira (via Sports Keeda). “I think you’re going to get some tough nights. I mean, he is a big size guy … This guy is big, solid, and he’s mean. He walks straight to you like, ‘I’m going to eat this guy.’”
Before Paul can try to line up a showdown vs. Pereira, he has to get through boxing legend Mike Tyson on November 15 from the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, a high-profile bout that’s set to air live and free on Netflix. Many are concerned about the health and safety of the 58-year-old former champion, who suffered a medical emergency back in May, but Ngannou isn’t worried.
On the same podcast, Ngannou predicted that Tyson is knocking out Paul!
As for “The Predator,” he’s crossing back into the cage after two losses two elite boxers in the ring. He’s scheduled to face Renan Ferreira on October 19 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in what will be his Professional Fighter’s League (PFL) debut.
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Card Info
Airing on Saturday 09.07.2024
Main Card on ESPN+ at 7PM ET
Division
Fighters
Welterweight
Gilbert Burns vs. Sean Brady
Strawweight
Jessica Andrade vs. Natália Silva
Featherweight
Kyle Nelson vs. Steve Garcia
Flyweight
Matt Schnell vs. Cody Durden
Lightweight
Trevor Peek vs. Yanal Ashmouz
Prelims on ESPN+ at 4PM ET
Division
Fighters
Lightweight
Rongzhu vs. Chris Padilla
Light Heavyweight
Ovince St. Preux vs. Ryan Spann
Featherweight
Isaac Dulgarian vs. Brendon Marotte
Flyweight
André Lima vs. Felipe dos Santos
Featherweight
Gabriel Santos vs. Yizha
Strawweight
Jaqueline Amorim vs. Vanessa Demopoulos
Middleweight
Andre Petroski vs. Dylan Budka
Featherweight
Zygimantas Ramaska vs. Nathan Fletcher
Fight card order and start times may be inaccurate.
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Gilbert Burns is still ranked as one of UFC’s top welterweights and faces Sean Brady in Saturday’s main event, but he’s also smart enough to know that fighting can’t last forever.
After celebrating his 38th birthday in July, the one-time UFC title challenger acknowledged that the sand in his hourglass is eventually going to run out, which is why he’s putting his full focus on earning another shot at gold before it’s all over. Taking a page out of his teammate Michael Chandler’s playbook, Burns wants to make his impact felt over his next few fights before calling it a career.
“I’m not getting younger,” Burns told MMA Fighting. “I just turned 38. I feel great. Especially training with all these monsters at Kill Cliff FC, I feel great. I’ve got to test myself everyday with those younger, hungry guys. But the window is closing. It’s not open anymore.
“I believe I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time. Saturday, Sept. 7, is going to be a good fight. I’m excited for that.”
Burns isn’t putting a number on the amount of fights he has left before retirement, and he’s not saying that he wants to be done by a certain age. But the Brazilian veteran also can’t ignore the reality of his situation — he’s been an active competitor across grappling and MMA for more than 20 years, and that kind of mileage adds up on anybody.
“I don’t know how many more fights I’ve got in me,” Burns said. “Because even before I started doing MMA, I’m doing jiu-jitsu for a while. Since I was 15 or 16, I was competing a lot. So it’s been very tough to keep up with the little injuries, the little stuff that before was [putting ice on it] and one [physical therapy session] and it was gone. Now it’s taking a little bit more. It’s a whole week for a little injury and get better. I’m training and I’m keeping up with that but it’s not been easy.
“I’m investing a lot of money in a cold plunge, sauna, physical therapy … that’s what I do all day. I train, I podcast once a week, and then other than that, recovery, training, recovery, massages, stretches, this and that, mobility, hyperbaric chamber, ice, sauna. That’s my life. I’ve got a couple more fights in me, but not a whole lot of fights in me. Again, I’m here to beat this guy, beat one more guy, get my title shot and get the title. You guys enjoy it while I’m here, because I’m not here for a long time.”
There’s an old adage in MMA that fighters need to retire from the sport before the sport retires them.
Burns subscribes to that philosophy because the last thing he wants to do is overstay his welcome and suffer the kinds of losses that transform him from a top-ranked contender to a cautionary tale for the next generation of athletes.
He looks at a current situation with former interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson, who was once considered the biggest threat to Khabib Nurmagomedov but now sits with eight straight losses on his résumé and his UFC run likely at its end. Even with the struggles he’s faced lately, Ferguson remains committed to fighting whether he’s in the UFC or not.
“I won’t be in that situation,” Burns promised. “I saw the Matt Brown thing [about Ferguson] and I agree with him. I do believe this is a mental health issue that a lot of fighters have. We saw a lot of fighters, even my guy Dustin Poirier [saying], ‘I need a date! I need a date!’ Bro, you don’t need a date.
“You don’t need to fight. You want to fight. It’s different. It’s different when you need to fight and when you want to fight.”
Brown addressed Ferguson refusing to retire during a recent episode of MMA Fighting’s The Fighter vs. The Writer and chalked it up to the same reason why most athletes have such a hard time walking away from the sport. It all comes down to chasing the euphoric high that accompanies competing in UFC, because that’s the kind of rush nothing else can ever duplicate.
Burns understands how that feels, but he refuses to let the thrill of fighting potentially diminish his long-term health just because he refuses to stop.
“I like when Matt Brown said we’re chasing that adrenaline dump with the win, making the guy quit and have that arm raised and all that. We love that,” Burns said. “But we cannot get caught up in that, and I think I learned those lessons when I had those three fights in five months when I fought Neil Magny back in Brazil and I won, and then I fought [Jorge] Masvidal in April, and a couple weeks after I tried to fight Belal [Muhammad], and that was mental health that I think I had a little bit of an issue. I just beat Masvidal, not the way I wanted, and then I needed one more. I need to [feel] this again.
“Then when I got a fight with Belal, I kind of felt like I wasn’t at my best. I wasn’t peaking. I just peaked twice in a row. I wasn’t peaking. Once I got there, I got injured. It made me reflect a lot, working on psychology. Like, I want to have that adrenaline. It’s not that I want to win. I was just talking to myself, talking to my coaches, convincing everybody that I wanted to fight but at that moment, I wanted to have that feeling again. It’s kind of like an addiction.”
As he prepares to fight Brady this weekend, Burns truly believes he can get a dominant finish and set himself up for an even bigger matchup that would put him back into title contention in the near future.
But eventually Burns knows he’s going to have to make that call to end his career, and like it or not, that’s going to come sooner rather than later.
“I don’t have like 10 more fights in me,” Burns said. “I might have like five around that, maybe a little bit more fights, and I want to go in peace like Robbie Lawler did. We’ve been talking a lot and he said, ‘Go in peace.’ Whenever you don’t want to compete a lot more in the training, whenever you’re slowing down, that’s it. I’m not putting a date, I’m not putting a number of fights, but I’m going to try to go out the smart way.
“I go out there and I finish Sean Brady, it’s got to be a big fight [next]. It’s got to be a No. 1 contender fight. If I’ve got to wait, OK. If I’ve got to wait a little bit on Shavkat [Rakhmonov] and these guys are next, so give me Kamaru [Usman], give me Colby [Covington], give me whoever is there, Leon [Edwards], and then after that I want a title shot. That’s my goal.”
The mixed martial arts leader stages its latest UFC Fight Night event on Saturday, and MMA News has you covered with all the action. Before all focus turns to a highly anticipated and significantly built-up Noche UFC pay-per-view at the Sphere next weekend, the promotion will put on another card at a much more low-key […]
Continue Reading UFC Fight Night: Gilbert Burns vs. Sean Brady Results & Highlights (4 PM ET) at MMA News.
Demetrious Johnson’s legendary MMA career has officially come to an end after the longtime UFC flyweight champion announced his retirement at ONE 168 on Friday night in Denver.
Following the announcement, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to the moment and discuss whether or not it was a surprise. Additionally, they break down the incredible UFC tenure of “Mighty Mouse,” his historic run as UFC flyweight champion and his 11 consecutive title defenses, discuss if that record will ever be broken, the major trade that sent Johnson to ONE for Ben Askren, if Johnson will get enshrined in the UFC Hall of Fame after delivering one of the all-time legendary careers in the octagon, and much more.
If you missed the show live, you can still watch above, or listen to the podcast version, which can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods.
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