A stunning finish
In the opening minute of the second round, Burns hurt Carneiro with a pair of punches, and the Brazilian immediately went for another takedown.

Carneiro began to try to dive past his guard but Burns rebuffed him at every turn.

“In film, I saw that he left space to get your knee back in, and I thought if he did it before, he’d do it again, so I was able to slip it in and not take any damage,” he says.

With Carneiro tiring, he punished him with elbows from the bottom, opening a cut on the favorite’s face. Suddenly, it was hard to tell which man was the blue belt, and which was the black.

With 90 seconds left, Carneiro postured up in the guard. Unknowingly, he was about to set Burns up for one of his favorite finishing techniques. When an opponent dives back down whether looking for a punch or to improve position, Burns looks for an upkick, and the triangle choke. Carneiro fell right into it. Burns locked his foot behind his knee and trapped his vastly more experienced opponent.

UFC analyst Joe Rogan couldn't hide his shock, screaming out, "He's got a triangle! He's got a triangle!"

Burns landed a pair of elbows, and then pulled Carneiro's head inward to fully apply the choke. And with 1:10 left in the second round, Roan Carneiro tapped out.

Think about this: Carneiro is a jiu-jitsu black belt who trains at the legendary American Top Team, a school that boasts around 30 black belts in its program. Burns is a blue belt and doesn’t have a single black belt to train with at his school.

Even in his most confident moments before the fights, he acknowledges that “never in a million years” did he expect to tap Carneiro.

“When I felt him tap it was surreal,” he says. “I looked up at [referee] Mario Yamasaki, and was thinking, ‘Do you see the fact he’s tapping? I can’t believe it. I think I just won.’”

If he thought he was shocked, he should’ve looked over at Carneiro. The Brazilian stayed slumped over, head on his hands for almost 30 seconds.

Back to reality
There wasn’t much time to dwell on the stunner for Burns.

Josh Hedges / Zuffa Kevin Burns taps Roan Carneiro with a triangle choke.

There was a plane to catch early Sunday to make it back home for the start of his 7 am Monday workweek at Wells-Fargo. He had to return to his seven-day-per-week workouts at Des Moines Jiu-Jitsu. By the way, that purple belt still hasn’t come his way, even for beating a black belt. That is one tough school.

“It’s fun to get promoted, but I’m more concerned with being effective,” he says.

He did earn a $50,000 submission of the night bonus -- a significant bump over his match pay – and put himself on the radar of the MMA world.

He hopes to one day be a fulltime fighter, but is practical enough to determine that such a move can’t be made until he and his wife are debt-free.

In the meantime, the UFC has scheduled him on their promptly arranged July 19 card, which will air on Spike TV. Millions will get to tune in to watch a hard-working guy with a full-time job look to advance his dream.

Burns will be fighting highly touted prospect Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, a huge welterweight with serious knockout power who has what is likely 2008’s KO of the year, a highlight reel finish over Tommy Speer.

“It’ll be one for the fans,” Burns says. “He likes to stand and bang, and I’d have done it with Roan if he’d have done it. The fans enjoy that.

Anderson Silva will be the headliner that night. Most of the attention of fight week will be on the superstar, who moves up to 205 to take on James Irvin.

That weekend, Kevin Burns might very well walk around Las Vegas unrecognized. He does, after all, look more like a bank employee than a pro mixed martial artist. His face is unmarked and his ears don’t carry the cauliflower scars of many fighters.

He's just a guy that juggles time like a street performer, trains like a beast and thinks big.

He’s just a fighter with a dream, and the fact that you might not know it isn't a source of frustration.

It's motivation.