Sean Brady will look to hand Gilbert Burns a third straight loss when they meet in the welterweight main event of a UFC Fight Night, set for the APEX Facility in Las Vegas on the morning of Sunday 8 September 2024.
Brady (16-1) was last in action in December of 2023, claiming a submission win over Kelvin Gastelum. The 31-year-old, who is ranked eighth in the division rankings, has suffered only one defeat in his professional MMA career, coming at the hands of now welterweight champion Belal Muhammad in October 2022.
The Philadelphia fighter undoubtedly wants to challenge for the title, but has first set his sights on unbeaten Ian Machado Garry, who recently defeated Michael Page.
“To be completely honest, not impressed – not impressed with Ian. Not impressed with MVP [Page], either,” Brady explained.
“Ian’s going on talking about he wants Shavkat [Rakhmonov], he wants this, he wants that.
“I thought he barely scraped through that fight. It could have been a draw in my book. I really didn’t see where he thought he did an amazing job.”
And Brady wants to get his hands on Garry if he can successfully negotiate this match with Burns.
“He’s got a lot of work to do, and I hope – obviously not looking past Gilbert – but I beat Gilbert, Ian said he wants to fight again in December, I get to turn that right back around and me and him get to finally do it.”
Burns (22-7), meanwhile, comes into the clash having suffered back-to-back losses for the first time in his career. The No 6-ranked fighter in the division was beaten by Belal Muhammad and Jack Della Maddalena in May 2023 and March 2024 respectively – effectively cutting short his talk of returning to title contention.
The 38-year-old Brazilian lost to Kamaru Usman in a title match in 2021, but will need to string together several wins if he is to get back to that kind of status in the division.
The rest of the main card features Jessica Andrade v Natalia Silva in a women’s flyweight fight; Steve Garcia faces Kyle Nelson in the featherweight division; a flyweight match pits Matt Schnell against Alessandro Costa; and Trevor Peek takes on Yanal Ashmouz in the lightweight category.
UFC Fight Night: Burns v Brady – Main card
- Main event: Welterweight: Gilbert Burns v Sean Brady
- Women’s flyweight: Jessica Andrade v Natalia Silva
- Featherweight: Steve Garcia v Kyle Nelson
- Flyweight: Matt Schnell v Alessandro Costa
- Lightweight: Trevor Peek v Yanal Ashmouz