Faced with the toughest test of his career, featherweight Shane Burgos is looking at Killer Cub Swanson as just another man.
Ottawa, ON — Featherweight Shane Burgos knows he’s in the biggest fight of his career this weekend. At UFC Ottawa, Burgos, who was last seen picking up a win over Kurt Holobaugh at UFC 230 in November, goes to war with a killer. ‘Killer’ Cub Swanson. While Swanson is mired in a three-fight slump, the name value alone still carries a lot of weight in the promotion. Certainly, with MMA fans.
Yet, as Burgos told Cageside Press at Thursday’s UFC Ottawa media day, he has to treat it as just another fight. Despite Swanson’s creative, “everything and the kitchen sink” style.
“I got a lot of creative training partners, a lot of guys who nobody really knows about,” Burgos revealed. “So yeah, I got a bunch of guys that are [flying] under the radar, to help me [win],” he said.
The approach is to just treat it like any other fight, biggest name or not. “100%, exactly. It is the biggest name, at the end of the day, if you look at it, it’s a fact.” Even knowing that, however, “at the end of the day, I’m not going to treat it any differently. He’s just another man, he bleeds blood just like me. So I’m not going to treat him like he’s this god or anything like that.”
That, despite not really having a full camp to prepare. “It was only about five and a half, six weeks I got the call,” Burgos admitted. However, expecting to fight on May 18 at UFC Rochester, he was ready to go. “So I was in shape when I got the call.”
UFC Ottawa, or UFC Fight Night 151, takes place May 4 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, ON. The card airs live on ESPN+/TSN in Canada.
