Gilbert Burns Explains Emotional Reaction to Alexandre Pantoja’s Victory at UFC 290

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by GILBERT BURNS "DURINHO" 🇧🇷 (@gilbert_burns)

UFC 290 is in the running for the best event of 2023, but one of the most memorable moments didn’t happen inside the cage.

Gilbert Burns’ celebration when countryman Alexandre Pantoja captured the flyweight championship caught the attention of the MMA community. The emotional reaction might have been unusual to an outsider, considering that Burns trains at Kill Cliff FC, a natural rival of Pantoja’s training home at American Top Team.

“One day a friend in common, Tiago, said ‘I must introduce you to Pantoja, you guys are soul brothers’ and that's exactly what happened,” Burns said. “After we got to know each other, we became really close, our wives started to be close friends, our two sons, about the same age, started to be best friends. My emotion came not only from being close, but from knowing exactly all the hard times he and Gabriela passed through. Actually, we both live our lives for the same dream and seeing a close friend achieving his goal is an emotion difficult to describe.

What [surprised me] is how people were curious about that. It should be normal for someone to be happy with the victory a friend, neighbor, or countryman like me, Charles [Oliveira] and Glover [Teixeira] have earned. We all have similar stories.”

Burns also praised Julianna Pena and Jorge Masvidal for their kindness that night.

“She [Pena] was really nice to us. I asked her to put Pantoja’s wife and kid in the two seats reserved for Masvidal and his manager, and she accepted on one condition: They should leave during the main event because Yair was very close to her and she didn’t want to be bothered. Of course we accepted the deal,” Burns said. “The only problem is that when the referee was going to start the fight Masvidal arrived. I told him it was Pantoja’s family and he said, no problem. From this moment on, the place got really tight, but thanks to Masvidal’s and Juliana’s kindness, Pantoja´s son were able to see their dad being crowned UFC champion up close. I just have to thank them.”

Burns provided some interesting details about his tears in the moment of Bruce Buffer's announcement.

“The fight was a war, but me and Glover were pretty sure Pantoja won three or four rounds. But when Buffer started to announce and the first judge gave a 49-46 scorecard to Moreno, I just thought, ‘I can't believe the kid will be robbed for all his hard work.’ That’s why I exploded and got so emotional after Bruce Buffer said, ‘And new.’”

Burns himself hasn’t competed since UFC 288, when he suffered a unanimous decision loss to Belal Muhammad. He shared details about the multiple injuries he suffered in that five-round affair.

I had a third degree acromioclavicular (shoulder) injury. I tore my trapezius, deltoid and had a strain in the C4 and C5 vertebrae in my spine. But my doctor decided to not do surgery,” he said. “We are working with stem cells and physiotherapy. I did the first application three weeks ago and I got great results. On Wednesday I'm going to do the second application of stem cells.”

Burns is already targeting a return to action in December.

“I would love to fight in November in Brazil, but that wouldn't be possible. I had three fights in 2023. Some of the Top 5 didn’t even fight in 2023 yet. I hope that the division changes in the coming months, so that I can come back against a challenger that makes sense,” Burns said.

“I saw [Georges St. Pierre] saying that he would like to have a [grappling match] in December. That fight would be great. And I already made myself available.”