Gilbert Burns doesn’t believe he’s facing any pressure ahead of UFC Winnipeg despite being on a four-fight losing streak.
Burns is set to headline UFC Winnipeg on Saturday against Mike Malott in enemy territory. He enters the bout on a four-fight losing streak, as he suffered a TKO loss to Michael Morales, a decision loss to Sean Brady, a KO loss to Jack Della Maddalena, and a decision loss to Belal Muhammad.
Although Burns has lost four in a row, he still feels confident in himself, and he believes the losing skid allowed him to reinvent himself.
“I gotta look in the mirror and reflect, say, ‘Okay, I’m doing something wrong.’ They’re hard matchups, yes, but I’m not performing the way I want, so it was a little bit of looking back and [identifying the mistakes] that needed to be corrected,” Burns said to UFC.com.
“It was good to sit down with the coaches, open up, talk about ‘I felt this weakness here; I felt this in this fight,’ and then make a plan to get back to work, get strong again. It was nice sitting down with the team, having an open conversation. A brutally honest conversation. And then restart. It was honestly kind of refreshing.”
Gilbert Burns believes the pressure is on Mike Malott
Burns enters UFC Winnipeg as the underdog, and he knows that Malott fighting in his home country adds to the pressure.
The former UFC welterweight title challenger believes people are expecting him to lose, which allows him to perform and fight with no pressure on him.
“I love hostile territory,” Burns added. “I fought [Olivier] Aubin-Mercier in Toronto. The whole crowd was against me. I went to Denmark, took on Gunnar Nelson. I went to different places. Especially in jiu-jitsu, where the crowd is against me, and I kind of like it more to be honest.
“Whenever it’s in Miami or Brazil, there is a lot of pressure, a lot of friends asking for tickets; family and everything is overwhelming. Winnipeg? A couple friends are going and I know the Brazilian community in Canada is huge, but all the pressure is on Mike Malott. I’m Gilbert Burns, four-fight losing streak, gonna turn 40 this year. All the pressure is on him; I’m chilling.”
Ultimately, Gilbert Burns has plenty of confidence that he will beat Mike Malott at UFC Winnipeg and prove he’s still a legit title contender.