Gilbert Burns retired at UFC Winnipeg on April 19, lost to Mike Malott in the main event, did the whole goodbye script. Twelve IBJJF medals. A UFC welterweight title shot. A career the BJJ community will eventually remember more fondly than it treated in real time.

A week later, free of any obligation to be diplomatic about his peers, Burns sat down for an interview and got the obvious question. Who is the best active BJJ practitioner in the UFC?

This is the part where you guess. Mackenzie Dern? ADCC champion, IBJJF world champion at black belt, the only legitimately decorated grappler with a UFC title shot on her resume. Buchecha? The most accomplished BJJ competitor of the last fifteen years, the guy whose IBJJF gold count needs its own Wikipedia table. Rodolfo Vieira, "The Black Belt Hunter," whose grappling resume is probably better than yours and your professor's combined?

Burns picked none of them.

He picked Raoni Barcelos.

Barcelos, for those who don't memorize bantamweight prelim cards, is a 38-year-old purple belt BJJ world champion. The relevant data point isn't the belt color. The relevant data point is what he did before he ever rolled. His father Laerte was a wrestling coach. Raoni wrestled his entire childhood, won multiple Brazilian wrestling titles, made it to the Pan American level. He came up at Nova União alongside José Aldo and Renan Barão during the gym's peak years. He's got the BJJ pedigree. The foundation underneath it is wrestling.

Burns' reasoning was simple: "He was his whole life wrestling. That is his differential, that's why he's doing well in the category." Translation: the best BJJ practitioner in the UFC is the one who can actually GET to BJJ. Everyone else is a black belt with a highlight reel.

Then the universe, which has a sense of humor about these things, scheduled UFC Vegas 116 for that same weekend.

On the same card:

  • Buchecha got knocked out in the second round by Ryan Spann. One punch. Spann walked away with a $100K performance bonus. Buchecha walked away with another L on a UFC ledger that has yet to record a win.
  • Rodolfo Vieira lost a unanimous decision to Eric McConico. Vieira opened with a power takedown, McConico got back up, Vieira's chain takedowns failed, and McConico spent the next two and a half rounds outstriking him. Second straight loss for Vieira.
  • Raoni Barcelos beat Montel Jackson by split decision. Five-fight win streak.

If you ever wanted a single weekend to ratify a retired veteran's hot take, this was it. Burns called the most decorated BJJ competitors in UFC history "men who can't reach grappling exchanges," and the schedule politely responded with two of them losing on the feet while the wrestling-first guy extended a streak. Even Burns probably thought the universe was overdoing the symbolism.

The natural objection writes itself. A purple belt isn't a better BJJ practitioner than Buchecha in a vacuum. Correct. Nobody's arguing that. Burns isn't nominating Raoni for the next ADCC. He's making a much narrower claim, the one BJJ purists hate to hear. "Who is the best BJJ practitioner in the UFC" and "who is the most accomplished BJJ competitor in the UFC" are different questions, and the BJJ community keeps confusing them on purpose.

Buchecha can armbar a black belt from any position on Earth. That has never been the obstacle. The obstacle is that to armbar someone in MMA, you first have to be in the same posture as them, which requires either taking them down or convincing them to take you down. Buchecha can do neither. Asked about Buchecha's debut earlier in the same interview, Burns put it more politely: "Buchecha couldn't let himself go, he couldn't find himself." That was charity. The cleaner read is he doesn't have the wrestling to make the rest of his game matter.

Vieira can sometimes solve part one. He opens fights with a real takedown about as often as anyone in the division. But as soon as the first attempt fails, he's stranded in a striking match he cannot win, and the next twelve minutes belong to whoever throws straighter. McConico didn't have to be a wizard. He just had to stay upright after the opening bell, which, against Vieira, has become a viable game plan.

Barcelos is, by Burns' own admission, the inferior pure grappler. He's also the only one of the three actually winning UFC fights, because his wrestling delivers him to grappling exchanges he then wins on volume and positioning. The wrestling is the membrane. Without it, the BJJ is a sealed door. Beautiful one. You still can't get to the other side.

Burns, for his part, told Bloody Elbow two days later that he'd un-retire if the UFC handed him a homecoming fight in Brazil. Even his retirement has the durability of a Buchecha takedown attempt. But the Barcelos take is the one that should outlive the comeback talk. It's the most honest thing a senior member of the BJJ community has said about MMA in months. The sport rewards getting to grappling more than it rewards being good at grappling, and the people who refuse to learn the wrestling part are running out of weekends to be exposed.

Buchecha is now 0-2-1 in the UFC. Vieira is 11-5. Barcelos is on five straight.

Mackenzie Dern, for the record, wasn't on Burns' list either. She's also one round of bad striking away from becoming everyone's reminder.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

Related Stories

gilbert-burns raoni-barcelos buchecha rodolfo-vieira ufc-bjj wrestling ufc-vegas-116