Gilbert Burns Weighs 198.8 Pounds for RAF 13 Chimaev Rematch
Gilbert Burns stepped on the Real American Freestyle scale at 198.8 pounds ahead of his catchweight rematch with Khamzat Chimaev at RAF 13.
The official number puts the Brazilian well above his old UFC welterweight home and into the same heavier range RAF has used for several crossover matches.
Burns flexed after the reading at the Miami weigh-in, then left the stage as the co-main event for Friday night at the Watsco Center became official.
The pairing is a runback of their UFC 273 fight from April 2022, when both men made 170 pounds and Chimaev won a unanimous decision in a Fight of the Night war.
Four years later, the setting and the scale are different. Burns retired from MMA after a third-round TKO loss to Mike Malott in April and now walks into Chimaev’s sport at nearly 200 pounds.
Chimaev has already used that heavier window in RAF. He weighed 203.4 pounds for his debut pin of Dillon Danis in June and came in at 192.5 pounds before pinning Tyron Woodley in under two minutes at RAF Moscow earlier this month.
Burns said this week that he knows the wrestling gap is real.
“For sure he’s a better wrestler, you can say that,” Burns told MMA Junkie. “He’s competed many more times than me. He’s a bigger guy, but the heart and the cardio, I think I can be in front of him.”
His plan is not to out-wrestle a three-time Swedish national champion over a short burst. It is to drag the match into the kind of grind Chimaev has struggled to finish when the pace stays high.
“That’s my goal: to frustrate him, get my good entrances, get him freaking tired,” Burns said. “The way I look back at our fight, and the Strickland fight, he hates to get tired.”
That last line pointed to Chimaev’s split-decision loss to Sean Strickland at UFC 328 in May, when the former middleweight champion faded after an early wrestling burst.
Burns also said he had to climb to 200 pounds for this assignment. The 198.8-pound weigh-in shows he got close without needing a cut back to 170.
The number also lands next to a separate RAF debate. Colby Covington has said he will only wrestle Chimaev at 185 pounds and will not go up to 200.
Covington defends the RAF Cruiserweight Crossover Championship against Belal Muhammad in Friday’s main event, the bout that closes the same Fox Nation card.
Burns is not asking for that lighter number. He accepted the catchweight, accepted the size difference, and treated the scale as part of the challenge rather than a negotiation.
Chimaev is 2-0 in RAF and has not given up a recorded point in either appearance. Burns is a third-degree jiu-jitsu black belt making his RAF debut at 40 years old after a 22-10 MMA career that included a UFC title shot against Kamaru Usman.
The first meeting in Jacksonville was a striking-and-scramble fight. This one is scheduled as freestyle wrestling, which removes Burns’ punching power and puts the match on Chimaev’s terms.
Burns said he is not going to chase a guillotine the way Danis did. He wants entries, pressure, and a tired opponent staring back at him.
RAF 13 streams Friday night on Fox Nation from Coral Gables. The co-main event is now locked at Burns’ 198.8-pound walk-in, with Chimaev still the larger and more decorated wrestler on paper.
If Burns can make the heavier man work for every exchange, the rematch becomes more than a nostalgia booking. If he cannot, Chimaev’s short RAF run stays unblemished heading into whatever comes next on the mat.