Having already traversed the difficult road to reaching the Ultimate Fighting Championship, featherweight star Shane Burgos now helps his brother Ryan Burgos in his own journey to reach the highest levels of the sport.
Although Shane, 30, and Ryan, 20, are separated in age by a decade the siblings have always been bonded by more than just brotherhood. The inception of Ryan’s interest in a future fighting career dates back to the earliest years of his childhood when he and his oldest brother would sit around the television and watch UFC fights together.
The birth of an MMA ‘natural’
“He put me on to [MMA] and showed me a UFC fight for the first time ever,” Ryan Burgos told MixedMartialArts.com. “I always used to watch it with him. And when he started [training] I was like, ‘I gotta do this.’ … In my first class, I remember being like a natural and just trying to crush my instructor’s hands. Just trying to hit it as hard as could.”
“The Hurricane” started his martial arts journey at 15, an age he says is a time to start for young men and women eyeing a career in the fight game. Yet his brother beat him to the mats by ten years and started his earliest training at five years old. Something even the fourteenth-ranked UFC featherweight can’t help but be a little envious of.
“Fifteen is a relatively young age too. Had I started when I was five I know I’d be world champion by now,” Shane Burgos told MixedMartialArts.com with a laugh.
Shane Burgos never fears when his brother steaps in a cage
The youngest Burgos had a successful run as a kid in martial arts and has been dominant thus far in winning his first two bouts by submission in less than two rounds. But things haven’t always been easy in Ryan’s combat sports career, and those times when he battled adversity and earned his moniker of “Relentless,” are why Shane has complete confidence every time his brother enters a cage fight. Even more than for his teammates that are already professionals.
“Honestly, for my teammates that are fighting, for my other brother [Jake] when he was fighting I get super nervous. But for him, I really don’t get nervous. I don’t need to tell him this because I don’t want to gas his head up, but that just goes to show how much confidence I have in him. When he started doing competitions when he was younger, we just expected him to win. He even expected himself to win,” says Shane.
“When he started facing more adversity there was a time he fell out of [competition] for a little bit because he was like, ‘I’m used to winning all the time,’ now he’s like, ‘oh sh*t, I actually have to work for it.’ Now he’s a completely different person. Way more mature. But for me, now that he’s put it all together, getting the hard rounds in the gym, he’s sparring with Julio Arce, Jimmie Rivera, high-level guys that are giving him hard work now [and adversity] and he doesn’t back down from it. So I really don’t get nervous.”
What makes Ryan Burgos ‘Relentless’?
What seems to separate the youngest child of Eddy and Renee Burgos from many other prospects in the sport is his advanced maturity level. He trains out of a no-nonsense gym in Tiger Schulmann’s MMA, which is a facility and teaching system that has produced hard-nosed Northeast fighters like Shane, Arce, Rivera, and Lyman Good. Ryan seems to have his head on straight and welcomes his success and failures as a part of his continued development. A development Shane expects to produce a future UFC fighter.
“It still is pretty intimidating sometimes [training with UFC veterans]. At first, it was totally different. I would go in there and just be shelled up and not open up, but now if I have a bad round with those guys I hold myself accountable. I want to do well and not get beat up by those guys. Rightfully so they should beat me up, and they do,” said Ryan with a laugh. “It’s crazy to see these guys I looked up to are starting to become my training partners.”
When breaking down his younger brother’s fight style, the Bronx, New York-native sees very few similarities. Shane has grown as a name in the UFC 145-pound division off a striking style that is pressurized and overwhelming like his “Hurricane” nickname. On the other hand, Ryan fights with a balanced style that aims to set up his grappling gifts. It’s a style that Shane says has helped to make him, “One of the best guys in the gym at putting it all together. Striking with the takedowns.”
Team Burgos plots out Ryan’s eventual jump to the pros
That’s a lofty statement for a gym filled with UFC-level talent. So the question then is, when does Ryan make the switch to the professional ranks, and is there a certain number of fights Team Burgos feels he needs to have before he makes the jump?
“I don’t think there’s a number. I think it’s more so about his performance. In his first fight, he took the guy down, choked him out in 25 seconds. Second fight he fought a really good [NCAA Division-I] wrestler, so I wanted him to strike more. He landed a bunch of calf kicks, a bunch of good combinations in the first round, and ended up submitting him in the second,” said Shane.
“So in the next fight, I just want to see more striking, and once he’s put it all together when it matters, then that’s when he’ll go pro. Because’s he’s doing it in the gym but it doesn’t matter in the gym. You’ve got to be able to mix it up when the light shines bright. I want to see him get a knockout.”
Ryan was set to compete for the third time in October, but his planned opponent dropped out over the weekend. Nonetheless, as they search for his next foe, big brother doesn’t see his sibling staying on the amateur scene longer than another year as he continues to bring his striking skills up to the level of his stellar grappling.
Although Ryan is confident he could turn pro now, he understands he’s surrounded by family, friends, and coaches that have his best interest in mind, so he is in no hurry to start the prize-fighting part of his career just yet.
“I’m not in any rush at all. All I do is listen to them. I obviously feel ready [now]. But when they say I’m ready, I know I’ll be ready for sure,” says Ryan.
“He’s ready now. He can go pro right now. He’s trained with pros, he’s on a pro-level. There’s no rush. He’s 20-years-old. Maybe another year or so of being an amateur. Get a couple more amateur fights. Get your feet wet then make some money in the pros,” Shane added.
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