“To be honest, a lot of things changed,” Burns said with a laugh when we spoke just a few days prior to his departing for New Jersey. “I said, ‘I’m not fighting, I’m not fighting,’ but Tuesday or Wednesday of (the next) week, the current champion, Leon Edwards, said he’s not fighting in July.
“I said, ‘I want a title shot’ because everything was pointing to July 22 in London to be a welterweight title fight, and so July is right there, we’re close, let’s go. Whenever he said he’s fighting in October, everything changes and I said, ‘Man, now I gotta fight’ because otherwise Kamaru (Usman) wants to fight, Belal is there and wants to fight, maybe Shavkat (Rakhmonov), and it’s gonna get busy.
“A couple days after that, Oliveira unfortunately got hurt, fight was off, and Belal Muhammad was the first one out there, calling out Colby,” continued Burns, referencing the postponed lightweight pairing between former champ Charles Oliveira and top contender Beneil Dairush, which has been reshuffled to UFC 289 in Vancouver next month. “I said, ‘I like that,’ and then I started to make some calls — the UFC, my manager — and tweeted out the same thing, asking for Colby, too.
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“A couple hours later, the UFC called me and said, ‘Colby is not available, but Belal is available’ and I said, ‘Let’s go!’”
It’s sound logic from the 36-year-old Brazilian, who earned a first-round submission win over Neil Magny in January at UFC 283 and will join fellow UFC 288 combatant Jessica Andrade in making their third appearances of the year this weekend.
