Gilbert Burns has been retired since April, and he says he hasn’t felt a single urge to come back. On MMA Junkie Radio, the former UFC welterweight title challenger set a simple rule for the rest of his competitive life: grappling and wrestling are fine, and anything involving fists hitting him is out.
“Grappling, yes, no striking,” Burns said, before adding, “No one’s going to punch this face ever again.” In case anybody at Dana White’s slap league was getting ideas, he was clear about that too: “No Power Slap, not at all.”
The one door he didn’t fully lock belongs to Misfits. Burns said the influencer boxing outfit has already pitched him a fight with one of its YouTubers. His answer was “not now, maybe later,” and he said he doesn’t feel like boxing at the moment.
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What cemented it for him was a trip back to the gym. While preparing for his RAF appearance, Burns spent a lot of time wrestling at Kill Cliff and watched the fighters spar. He described seeing “one guy was dropped by a body shot, the other one almost got kicked in the face,” along with knees to the body, and walking away happy he’s done with all of it. Watching his good friend Alexandre Pantoja go through it from the outside didn’t help the nostalgia either. “I saw Pantoja fighting a war, and then I’m like, I don’t miss that at all,” Burns said.
He does miss the people. Burns name-checked his old coaches and teammates, saying “I miss seeing Henri (Hooft) every day, Vicente every day, Gregory every day.” He also said he has picked up plenty of new friends doing jiu-jitsu. The camp life itself he can live without. “I don’t miss the training, I don’t miss getting kneed on my body, low kicks,” he said.
Burns walked away at 22-10 in MMA and 15-10 in the UFC. The final fight was a TKO loss to Mike Malott in the UFC Fight Night 273 headliner in April, his fifth defeat in a row. At his peak he got a welterweight title shot against Kamaru Usman and dropped the champ before getting stopped. Burns summed up his career this way: “Fought for the title, got big fights, couple of main events, and I’m done, and I’m very happy that I’m done.”
He hasn’t exactly been sitting on a couch. Burns made his UFC BJJ debut in June and submitted Horlando Monteiro at UFC BJJ 9. He then ran it back with an old rival under wrestling rules at RAF 13, where Khamzat Chimaev beat him by tech fall. Next up is Gabriel Almeida at UFC BJJ 12 on Wednesday.
I love this for him. Burns sounds like a guy who quit a job, stopped by the old office for a coffee, watched his former coworker take a liver shot, and remembered exactly why he left. This sport has a long tradition of guys taking the “one more fight” tour three fights too long, and here’s a former title challenger who ate five straight losses, read the room and found a way to keep competing without getting his head rattled. This same week Donald Cerrone announced a return to combat sports after four years away, so the itch is real for plenty of people. Burns apparently scratches his with a gi. The worst thing Gabriel Almeida can do to him Wednesday is an armbar, and Durinho seems totally fine with that trade.
