UFC welterweight and multiple-time jiu-jitsu world champion Gilbert Burns has joined the chorus demanding better healthcare for UFC fighters. Burns discussed his point of view in a recent interview with MMAFighting, citing a brutal cardiac arrest suffered by NFL safety Damar Hamlin.
“That was scary, especially in a football game. Sometimes I feel like MMA is a little bit more fair because we signed the contract. It’s you against one guy in the same weight division and you know the guy’s intensity. You know what the guy wants to do. But on the football field, it’s different.
Gilbert Burns Calls for UFC Healthcare
I’m running with the ball and freaking Francis Ngannou is coming after me. It’s a little bit more unfair in that way because those guys are huge. You’re running and you get hit by the guy you don’t see coming. It was scary.” Burns continued, hoping that MMA “gets more serious” about providing for fighters in the event of a life-changing injury.
“I hope MMA gets way more serious with healthcare because we put everything on the line. At the end of the day, we do that because first off, we like it. We know the dangers. We know what we are doing. That feeling that we could live or die, we accept that. I go into the fight knowing I could get hurt pretty bad. But financially, we still need to get better.
That guy [Damar Hamlin], I don’t know how much he makes but I bet that money, his kids will be taken care of, his family will be taken care of in case something happens. I just hope that MMA and [NFL] steps up and provides for the family if something happens with the fighters or the football players cause when you get to the highest level, things are going to happen. I would like to see all the athletes taken care of financially, especially if something that bad happens so the families are taken care of.”
Burns also spoke from personal experience, cornering Vicente Luque during a brutal knockout win. “I was cornering Vicente Luque and Jalin Turner took a fight on short notice.
Vicente knocked him out and over two minutes [passed] before that guy woke up. In the moment, I was very happy because Vicente won by knockout, we were celebrating, we got the shirt on him and got him a drink and we were celebrating and then we looked and the guy was still on the floor. Then we talked more and we celebrated a little bit more and then we looked and he was still down.
Then I started praying. Please God let that guy come back. I stopped celebrating and I was freaking out but then after like 30 more seconds, he finally woke up but he had no idea where he was.” Do you agree with Gilbert Burns? Let us know in the comments.
