A welterweight fight between Gilbert Burns and Michael Morales that was set to take place at UFC 315 in Montreal, Canada on May 10th has now been pushed back a week to headline UFC Fight Night 256 at the Apex in Las Vegas instead.
The UFC Fight Night 256 event was originally supposed to take place in Qatar, but was moved back to Las Vegas for undisclosed reasons some time ago and has since seen some of it’s fights shifted to other shows, including potential headliners like Curtis Blaydes vs. Rizvan Kuniev, Johnny Walker vs. Azamat Murzakanov and Sergey Spivak vs. Shamiel Gaziev.
That left the card lacking any notable star power, and with a rumored fight between the undefeated Movsar Evloev and newly signed Bellator star Aaron Pico having fallen through last week it’s not surprising to see the UFC bringing Burns vs. Morales on-board to front the show.
A former title challenger at 170lbs, the 38-year-old Burns is in need of a win after having lost three fights in a row against Belal Muhammad, Jack Della Maddalena and Sean Brady over the past couple of years.
In all fairness to Burns, that could scarcely have been a tougher line-up of fights when you considered that Muhammad is now the champion, Maddalena is the next title challenger, and Brady is the current No.1 contender.
Still, it’s not necessarily going to be any easier for the veteran next time out as though Morales is still just outside the current top 10 contenders at No.12, the 25-year-old is undefeated in his 17-fight career to date, including five wins in a row in the Octagon so far, beating the likes of Neil Magny, Jack Matthews and Trevin Giles along the way.
Burns vs. Morales fronts a UFC Fight Night 256 card that will also feature the likes of Paul Craig vs. Rodolfo Bellato, Tecia Pennington vs. Luana Pinheiro and Nursulton Ruziboev vs. Dustin Stoltzfus.
