Gilbert Burns and Roberto Jimenez are both fantastic grapplers at the very top of their game, and they recently took part in a very intense sparring session with a ton of action. Both men started out their combat sports careers in the BJJ world first, but they’ve gone down very different paths since then. Jimenez has stayed in grappling competition for his entire career, whereas Burns made the transition to MMA after winning the IBJJF World Championship and has since gone on to become one of the top contenders in the UFC welterweight division.
Although Burns has been developing his MMA skills for quite some time now, he’s also returned to his roots a handful of times to take grappling matches against top competitors. This has been a little less frequent since he has reached the top five of the welterweight division, but he still has faced some amazing grapplers at the same time. Jimenez on the other hand lives and breathes Jiu-Jitsu, and he’s managed to reach the highest level of his own sport as well. Not only is he an ADCC veteran but most recently he won the absolute division of the IBJJF No Gi World Championship.
Burns is no stranger to either of those events though, as he actually won the IBJJF No Gi World Championship in 2013 and came away with a bronze medal from ADCC in 2015. Although he’s spent years developing his striking skills to be able to take on elite fighters on the feet, he’s still kept his grappling skills sharp in the cage. It’s clear from the footage of Gilbert Burns training with Roberto Jimenez that he’s capable of keeping up with some of the best grapplers around today and it’ll be interesting to see how he does the next time he decides to step on the mats.
Gilbert Burns uploaded the footage of him sparring with Roberto Jimenez in training in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
