Gilbert Burns misses weight for Polaris 4 fight against Garry Tonon

UFC veteran and Polaris fighter Gilbert Burns failed to make weigh last night after coming 10lbs over his 170lb weight limit.

It’s not unusual for Garry Tonon to fight bigger guys, at Polaris 3, he fought Palhares, who came in at 183lbs, he has also fought the likes of Cyborg, Buchecha and Vinny Magalhães, all who are considerably bigger than he is. This, however, seemed to be the last straw for the Danaher Death Squad member.

When your opponent misses weight by 10pounds #polaris4 @polaris_professional #tononvsdurinho Listen guys, asking my opponent to make weight is never because I’m worried about them being bigger than me. I’ve had matches with Palhares, Buchecha, Cyborg, Vinny Magalhães and Luis Panza. And ultimately making your opponent cut weight, especially for a day before weigh in won’t likely change their overall body size and strength that much on the day of the competition. It’s simply a matter of respect for your opponent. If a larger opponent matches with a smaller one and they ask for a weight class, so long as its reasonable to make, they should do it out of respect. Durinhos UFC weight class is 155, I asked him to make 170 day before, which is more than reasonable. I asked Palhares to make 183, he did and his ufc weight class was 170. Imanari asked me to make 150 and I did. By the Way, Of course the fight is still on, because I’m not a pussy.

A photo posted by Garry Lee Tonon (@garrytonon) on Oct 29, 2016 at 2:32am PDT

 

Even John Danaher had a few choice words to say about Burns…

Size difference: I always urge my students to see the main attribute of jiu jitsu training as the ability to control and defeat greater size and aggression with less. Often the squad struggles to find opponents their own size to compete against. Very often they have to fight opponents significantly larger than themselves as a result. Today at the weigh ins for Polaris 4, Garry Tonon weighed in at his actual bodyweight of 167.5 – after eating a steak lunch. His opponent – Gilbert Burns was supposed to weigh in at 170 but failed to make weight by almost 10 pounds. He was so far over that he will not even try to make the weight and once again the squad will face a much larger opponent and rely on technique to prevail. Nothing shows belief in our technique better than taking on much heavier opponents.

A photo posted by John Danaher (@danaherjohn) on Oct 28, 2016 at 9:59am PDT

It’s unknown what will happen to Burn’s purse due to the missing weight but this will add fuel to the fire to an already exciting matchup! You can watch it live at Polaris-pro.org

Polaris 4 Weigh Ins