Gilbert Burns tapped to a first-round heel hook from Gabriel Almeida on Thursday night in Las Vegas at UFC BJJ 12. It was his first loss under the promotion’s grappling banner. At the top of the card, Cassia Moura kept her flyweight title with a split decision over Adele Fornarino. MMA Mania flagged the result as controversial and reported that the win made Moura the first double champion in UFC BJJ history.
The Burns match started on his terms. Durinho shot for a takedown early, and Almeida immediately hunted a guillotine. Burns got his head out quickly, which is the kind of escape a black belt of his pedigree makes look routine, and settled into top position. Then nothing much happened from there. Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting noted that Burns couldn’t build any offense from up top. That gave his fellow Brazilian time to work. Later in the round Almeida reversed into top position himself, attacked the neck first, and then switched to the legs. Burns fought the position hard and tried to keep his heel out of trouble, but Almeida locked up the heel hook and got the tap. The UFC BJJ account clipped it on X with the caption “Heel hook from HELL by Gabriel Almeida.” Fight Pass subscribers watched it live, and it’s hard to argue with the caption.
The defeat breaks up a promising start for the retired MMA fighter’s grappling run. Burns debuted with UFC BJJ in June and submitted Horlando Monteiro with a rear-naked choke. He also didn’t take much time off before this one. Roughly three weeks ago he wrestled Khamzat Chimaev under wrestling rules at RAF and lost by tech fall. That’s two losses in less than a month across two different rulesets, both against opponents who were happy to let him spend energy first.
The championship business took up the rest of the night’s headlines. Moura’s split decision over Fornarino in the main event is the result people will be arguing about this weekend. A split call with a belt on the line was always going to leave one camp furious. In the co-main, Renato Canuto took a unanimous decision over Ethan Crelinsten and claimed the vacant lightweight title. That one ended without much drama on the scorecards.
My take: Burns deserves credit for saying yes to everything. Wrestling Chimaev and then turning around for a submission-only match inside of a month is the kind of schedule nobody would blame him for skipping. But a heel hook ruleset punishes anyone who takes top position and waits, and Burns waited. Almeida stayed patient off the guillotine miss, moved from the neck to the legs without hesitating, and finished a world-class grappler inside one round. If UFC BJJ is building names, it just found one, and Almeida should get a ranked opponent next rather than a soft landing.
