Gilbert Burns names the names that couldn’t or wouldn’t fight him at UFC…

With a UFC card coming to his adopted home state of Florida, Gilbert Burns made it a must to be on the card. With all of his training, family, and friends in the area, he wanted to be able to put on a show for his home crowd. While the UFC was doing everything they could do get him on the card, it wasn’t smooth sailing getting ‘Durinho’ onto the UFC Fort Lauderdale card.

The UFC has given me so many great names, great options, but everyone turned that fight down – every single one, said Burns to the Top Turtle MMA Podcast. No one wished to come here and fight me.

The reasons were myriad and left Burns struggling to find anyone to fight him.

A couple guys were banged up, another guy had issues, another guy didn’t want to fight, he said. I want to fight here in Florida.

Although some fighters are hesitant to name drop all the fighters who avoided them, Burns spilled the beans immediately. Among them include fighters all around the top 20 in the division.

I’m talking about Charles Oliveira, Gregor Gillespie, we talked about Alexander Hernandez, Drakkar Klose, Burns said. Every guy had a little something.

Eventually, Burns took a bout with Eric Wisely, who was then forced out with heart condition. He now meets debuting fighter Mike Davis, who appeared on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series. Davis is definitely a step down in competition for Burns, who is coming off a win over Olivier Aubin-Mercier, but Burns said that doesn’t matter all that much.

I see it both ways – I see that I got to work, he said. I was like ‘bro, I don’t care. I just got to keep improving – got to keep getting better. So I’m going to fight whoever shows up.

Burn’s bout with Davis takes place on the prelims of this weekend’s UFC on ESPN+ 8 card live from Sunrise, Florida.

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Author Daniel Vreeland is a co-founder of the Top Turtle Podcast, and a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu at New England Submission Fighting in Amherst, Massachusetts.