Sean Brady Dominates Gilbert Burns In Hard-Hitting Headliner

Sean Brady continued his climb up the welterweight rankings with a dominant performance against Gilbert Burns in the UFC Vegas 97 headliner on Saturday night.

Brady quickly established himself as the faster fighter on his feet, out-landing Burns with a variety of combinations and mixing in his grappling to keep the one-time title challenger under 10 significant strikes throughout the opening round. However, Burns got things off to a hot start in the second, landing a nasty knee up the middle that wobbled Brady. That prompted Brady to clinch up and take a few moments against the fence to shake off the cobwebs.

Burns’ offense saw a significant uptick in the second with him becoming just the second fighter to ever take Brady down to the mat inside the Octagon, though he wasn’t able to accomplish much with the takedown and likely ended the second stanza down 2-0.

Brady continued to dominate things on the feet despite Burns’ best efforts to bring pressure and put the rising contender on his backfoot. Brady ended the third round with a big right hand followed by a successful takedown, picking up Burns and sending him crashing back down to the canvas.

In the opening 30 seconds of the fourth, we saw dueling low blows as both Brady and Burns hit their opponent below the belt by accident. Fortunately, both fighters were able to recover quickly, getting us right back to the action.

Brady largely dominated the last two rounds minus the final minute of the fourth with Burns managed to score some control time, but not much else. Burns was fishing for the Hail Mary shot in the fifth, but Brady nullified that by taking him down with two minutes to go and riding out an all-but-guaranteed win on the scorecards.

Official Result: Sean Brady def. Gilbert Burns via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46)

Check out Highlights From Gilbert Burns vs. Sean Brady at UFC Vegas 97: