Latest KevinBurns Stories

Chris Lytle will step into the Octagon on Saturday night for his 49th professional mixed martial arts fight. But as busy as he's been fighting dozens of times, Lytle has done a lot more than just that: Lytle is also a full-time firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department, in addition to being a husband and father of four, and doing some professional boxing on the side as well.

In an interview with FanHouse, Lytle told me how he balances it all, why he expects his fight with Kevin Burns at Saturday night's Ultimate Fighter Finale on Spike to be a barn burner, and why he never wants fighting to feel like just a job that delivers a paycheck. The full interview is below.

A year ago, Kevin Burns was just a guy with a job at Wells Fargo and a dream of making it big in the UFC. Now he's a full-time UFC fighter, but he says he still has a lot more to do before he's accomplished all his goals.

In an interview with FanHouse, Burns talked about how he got into the UFC, his shocking upset of Roan Carneiro in his UFC debut, his back-to-back fights with Anthony Johnson and his upcoming fight against Chris Lytle Saturday night on Spike. The full interview is below.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Lessons is a FanHouse feature in which we ask someone in the MMA world to teach us about one aspect of Brazilian jiu jitsu. Today UFC fighter Kevin Burns tells us about the triangle choke.

In the summer of 2008, Kevin Burns was working a day job and doing a little MMA fighting on the side, until he got his big break when the UFC offered him an opportunity to fight Roan Carneiro at UFC 85. Carneiro is a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt, but Burns shocked everyone by submitting him with a triangle choke. In an interview with FanHouse, Burns told me how the triangle choke works and what makes it effective.

Junie Browning stole the show when he defeated Dave Kaplan last night at the Ultimate Fighter finale -- he stole attention that should have gone to Ryan Bader, for a dominant TKO win over Vinny Magalhaes, and to Efrain Escudero, for a fast-paced and exciting unanimous decision win over Phillipe Nover.

The Ultimate Fighter is supposed to be about taking a group of MMA prospects, pairing them off in a tournament, and determining which one is the best of the bunch. As far as that goes, Bader and Escudero did everything that was asked of them. Both of these young men are impressive up-and-coming MMA fighters, and we'll be seeing a lot of them in the coming years. They have bright futures in the UFC.

And yet it's Browning who continues to have everyone talking. It was Browning's second-round submission win over Kaplan that earned Fight of the Night honors and a $25,000 bonus from the UFC. Bader and Escudero got six-figure contracts with the UFC by winning their fights at the Finale, but both men walked out of The Palms in Las Vegas last night with less money and less fame than Browning.

The most unsatisfying result in MMA this year was Kevin Burns' TKO win over Anthony Johnson in July, a win Burns got because he accidentally poked Johnson in the eye and referee Steve Mazzagatti didn't see it.

But while that fight ended the wrong way, the UFC did the right thing by scheduling Johnson vs. Burns II, a fight that will take place Saturday night in the Ultimate Fighter Finale. Cage Potato has an interview with Johnson and one with Burns, and it's no surprise that the two of them view their first fight differently.