What Happens When A Bull Runs Into A Brick Wall?

Analyzing how Gilbert Burns stacks up against Sean Brady

Author

William
September 3rd, 2024

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First Things First

This weekend the UFC is pairing two of welterweight’s most impressive grapplers. Gilbert Burns is fighting Sean Brady.

Today we’re going to take a deeper look at Burns’s UFC run, the grappling skill he’s used to get where he is, and touch on how he might use it against Brady.

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Gilbert Burns

Gilbert Burns is one of the most accomplished Brazilian jiu-jitsu players to ever step foot in the Octagon. The former IBJJF World Champion has morphed into an all around MMA threat that uses fast strikes to run into the clinch and throw people around.

Burns fights like a bull. He runs forward behind hard strikes. That forward momentum has carried him to nine submissions and six knockouts on his professional record. Let’s start with how he gets things from the feet to the floor.

Technical Takeaways

Striking Into Grappling

Burns is not the best open space wrestler. You’ll hardly see him shoot and chain takedowns in the middle of the cage.

What he does really well is get people backing up to the fence. And once you’re there he overpowers you with offense.

Before he moved up to become a fast welterweight, Burns was a thick lightweight. He used his horsepower to muscle opposition along the fence. Burns would press forward, turn opponents, and lift them off of their feet to slam them to the floor.

Burns pushes forward with double under hooks. He steps around Moret’s leg to trip him. On the floor he keeps his head above Moret’s carefully grabs his wrist, and then hooks his leg. To move, Moret will have to expend tons of energy.

Gilbert Burns vs Dan Moret

But this isn’t how Burns built his name. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt’s flashiest work comes after the takedown.

Burns has excellent Brazilian jiujitsu. He’s parlayed that into punishing MMA grappling. He’s always looking to disrupt his opponent’s base and advance position.

Burns is wrist riding. Olivier pushes Burns’s head off of him so he can turn and to get up. Burns weaves a deep hook in to halt Olivier’s progress before locking a body triangle. Olivier stands and Burns pulls his leg out to collapse Olivier.

Gilbert Burns vs Olivier Aubin-Mercier

Once Burns has a dominant position offense floods from him. He unleashes aggressive and punishing strikes to get to what he really wants, submissions.

Finishing On The Floor

Judging by the way Burns grapples you know he has a deep understanding of the essence of jiujitsu. He’s efficient, he doesn’t settle, and he never goes backwards. Everything is built off of pressure that forces you to create an angle he can exploit.

What I like most about Burns’s game is how well he employs the classic triple threat of arm triangle, rear naked choke, and arm bar.

Burns is behind Giagos. He’s off to the side a bit so he has an angle for the arm triangle if he comes on top. He does, Giagos explodes, and extends his arm in the process. Burns jumps on it and gets the submission finish.

Gilbert Burns vs Christos Giagos

When you’ve passed guard you can force your opponent to cross their centerline. That exposes them to the arm triangle.

Burns is in mount. He’s trying to push Magny’s hands to the floor. When he postures to throw a couple strikes Magny covers up. Burns pushes Magny’s arm past his center line to lock up an arm triangle and get the finish.

Gilbert Burns vs Neil Magny

Broadly speaking, when you attack the arm arm triangle choke your opponent has two options:

  1. Get their back flat to the mat and get their arm inside. This is really just hoping your opponent doesn’t have a good arm triangle.

  2. Turn away to give up their back but avoid the arm triangle. Obviously this puts them at risk of a rear naked choke, but, in theory, you live to fight another day. Most haven’t against Burns.

Burns is on Davis’s back. Davis’s hands are tight to his head so Burns starts to wail on Davis from behind. Burns pulls Davis up and to his right. Davis sits up to escape and Burns uses the space to punch his choking arm in.

Gilbert Burns vs Mike Davis

Burns is just straight up nasty when he’s behind people. He gets a lot of pop in punches and elbows which does some combination of three things:

  1. Hurts opponents

  2. Distracts them from the rear naked choke

  3. Makes them overreact and give up the arm bar

Burns is hitting Sajewski from behind. Then he pulls him into a body triangle to start attacking submissions. Sajewski posts on the mat to escape and Burns under hooks the arm to grab an arm bar.

Gilbert Burns vs Łukasz Sajewski

But Burns is a savant. A real master of grappling. He’s fine attacking the arm bar from the mount as well.

Burns steps over Oliveira’s left arm to catch his right in his armpit. Oliveira hops over Burns to escape, but Burns catches a loose triangle to salvage the attack. Burns forces Oliveira to roll forward while Burns pinches Oliveira’s arm between his thighs so he can get the arm bar.

Gilbert Burns vs Alex Oliveira

But all of this is contingent on Burns actually making it to the floor. What happens if the fight never gets there? What happens if the bull runs into a brick shithouse with a black belt as well?

Brady The Brick Wall

Sean Brady is an MMA native with strong Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He’s a black belt, he competes, and wins, a lot. He’s only lost once in the UFC to the now champion, Belal Muhammad.

Brady is a good grappler but he’s a far cry from Burns. I don’t think the difference will be much of a concern in this fight though. Brady is an absolute hoss in the clinch, and he’s surprisingly crafty.

Brady follows Gastelum’s punches into the clinch. They trade strikes before Brady muscles Gastelum to the fence. Then he drops on the takedown and runs Gastelum to the mat. When Gastelum tries to stand Brady runs behind him.

Sean Brady vs Kelvin Gastelum

One thing that Brady does really well is use his feet in the clinch. He has used really clever trips to make the most of his cage wrestling.

Naurdiev tries a bicycle knee on Brady. Brady backs up before catching a clinch and Turning Naurdiev onto the fence. Brady turns Naurdiev again and hooks the floating leg to trip Naurdiev.

Sean Brady vs Ismail Naurdiev

Here is Brady again with another clever turn and trip from this same fight.

Brady has an over under clinch on Naurdiev. He hooks an outside trip on Naurdiev and turns him with his under hook. Naurdiev can’t step because his foot is hooked so he falls on his butt.

Sean Brady vs Ismail Naurdiev

In Brady’s most recent fight with former middle weight Kelvin Gastelum, he destroyed the man returning to welterweight. You can read a full analysis on this fight here.

This is really where the fight hinges in my opinion. The clinch.

If Burns throws a kick, Brady will run through it to take him down like he did so effortlessly on Gastelum. If Burns makes it to the clinch, I just don’t think he has the horsepower nor finesse to make the most of it. We’ve seen his high octane clinch grappling get shut down by good grapplers that can use their feet while wrestling.

Burns has double under hooks on Nelson. He knees Nelson before hooking outside of his leg. Nelson lifts his hooked leg to off balance Burns and trip him backwards to the mat. Nelson immediately pressures in to start passing.

Gilbert Burns vs Gunnar Nelson

Barring a quick strike that neither I nor Brady sees coming, I don’t see how Burns takes this. Either way, I’m excited to see these two hard nose fighters go at each other. Come back here next week to see how the action played out.

Sean Brady has a fair amount of his regional fights available on Youtube:

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