It’s nothing new to see someone about to crack into the top 15 take a shot at the champ, but few who do have the credentials of Herbert Burns. 

A jiu jitsu black belt for nearly a decade, Burns is a Brazilian national no-gi champion at that level. But really it’s his submissions skills in MMA that have caught the attention of many. And it is precisely those skills that he believes champion Alexander Volkanovski is lacking. 

“He has good grappling, but doesn’t have submission skills,” Burns states confidently. 

As evidence of this fact, Burns points to the fights of Volkanovski that have hit the mat. Although he regularly is able to drag his opponents to the mat, he says he doesn’t see much when Volkanovski gets ther. 

“He doesn’t present submission skills. Even when he got on the ground, he tried to ground and pound, he tried to control a little bit,” he said. “But there’s nothing like world-class grappling.”

While he points out this missing area in the champion’s game, he does point out that the champ has managed to overcome that aspect of MMA. Instead, Burns feels he uses his two strengths to avoid the other portions of the game, namely jiu jitsu, en route to victory. 

“He’s a fighter that has good striking and good wrestling,” Burns allowed. “He tries to control the fights with those two weapons.”

However, Burns thinks that this ultimately will be the downfall of Volkanovski. In a division that is loaded with high level grapplers like Kron Gracie and Ryan Hall, Burns feels this deficit will eventually lead to Volkanovski losing his belt. Of course, Burns feels he’ll be the first to get there. 

“[I’ll] make him be on the outside and force him to overreach,” he said. “And take him down then use the grappling against him.”

Burns has more work to do to get to the 145lbs strap though, which starts with his bout this weekend against Daniel Pineda. You can catch that bout as part of the ESPN+ prelims of UFC 252 this Saturday.