Gilbert Burns Suffers Multiple Muscle Tears In Shoulder Following Injury At UFC 288

Burns suffered multiple muscle tears but is confident that he'll avoid surgery.

Author:
Dustin Lewis
Publish date:
May 11, 2023 12:30 AM EDT

Welterweight contender Belal Muhammad came out with his fifth straight victory while matching up with Gilbert Burns at UFC 288 over the weekend. However, the co-main event was dampened after Burns suffered a left shoulder injury early in the bout that essentially had him fighting with one arm.

Burns threw roughly half the amount of total strikes as Muhammad while visibly hampered. He was clearly disappointed but provided an admirable effort as he took the fight to a decision.

On Wednesday, Burns provided an update on his shoulder injury after being evaluated by doctors. While he suffered multiple muscle tears as well as sprains in his neck, it sounds like he'll avoid surgery and instead will focus on rehab over the next couple of months.

“I have AC joint torn, but it’s the second-to-third grade,” Burns said. “I have the dilatory torn. On the trap, I have a muscle torn, and I have a sprain on my C-4 and my C-5 [neck]. But all of those are partial. Nothing major. Thank God I don’t need no surgery," Burns said on his YouTube Channel. "I’m taking a strong inflammatory. Be sleeping most of the time. As of right now it doesn’t hurt because I’m taking a lot of medicine but it's so swollen. The good news is I don’t need surgery. It’s going to be between two to three months recovery. I’ve got to do a lot of rest the first three weeks. I don’t think I even have PT. I’m going to get a brace. The good thing was all partial but the doctor said whenever my shoulder hit the canvas, hit the floor very hard, my whole body kind of got tense. That's why I couldn't even do anything."

While going into detail about the situation, Burns talked about what happened leading up to the injury. He tried to takedown Muhammad but the attack didn't wind up going how he anticipated as Burns ended up with all of both fighters' weight on his shoulder.

Burns was dealing with a fair amount of pain that basically caused his body to start locking up. He tried to throw shots with his left arm but the shoulder wouldn't respond.

"I was looking to counter his shots with the takedown. Whenever he tried to kick, I jumped to a takedown," Burns said. "I got to his waist, I kind of jumped to get the good timing but I didn't run with my leg so what happened was he kind of sprawled back a little, he did kind of like a down block and I landed right on my left shoulder. All of my weight, all of Belal Muhammad's weight was on my left shoulder."

"From then on, it was so hard to kind of clear my mind and accept that I was hurt. I kind of did that a couple of times but then he catch one of my kicks or then I go to do this and it wasn't working," Burns continued. "So it was a mental battle to try and stay in the fight and try to find a way to win but yeah I was unsuccessful in there. The pain was so much, my body it kind of locked it a little bit. I couldn't move. I throw a left hook, I couldn't throw. I tried to grapple a little bit, couldn't clinch, couldn't do anything."

The Chicago native noted that he was already planning to take some time off after fighting three times since January. His bout against Muhammad only came about four weeks after defeating Jorge Masvidal at UFC 287.

Depending on how his recovery progresses, Burns says that he would like to step into the octagon once more time before the year concludes.

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