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Brett OkamotoApr 19, 2026, 01:30 PM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Brett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN since 2010. He has covered all of the biggest events in combat sports during that time, including in-depth interviews and features with names such as Dana White, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Georges St-Pierre. He was also a producer on the 30 for 30 film: “Chuck and Tito,” which looked back at the careers and rivalry of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. He lives in Las Vegas, and is an avid, below-average golfer in his spare time.<\/p>\n Multiple Authors<\/p>\n Former UFC welterweight title challenger Gilbert Burns<\/a> announced his retirement on Saturday, following a knockout loss to Mike Malott<\/a> in the main event of UFC Fight Night in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n Burns (22-10) removed his gloves and brought his family into the Octagon, as the announcement was made. Burns, 39, has been fighting professionally since 2007 and exclusively in the UFC since 2014.<\/p>\n “I think that’s it,” Burns said in his post-fight interview. “I had a great career. I fought so hard. I wanted to win so bad. I fought the best guys in the world, pound-for-pound, a lot of champions. I never said no to a fight. I’m content.”<\/p>\n Malott (13-2-1) finished the 170-pound main event at the 2:08 mark of the third round, after he dropped Burns with a clean left hook. Saturday’s loss was Burns’s fifth in a row, three of which came via knockout. His last victory came against Jorge Masvidal<\/a> in April 2023.<\/p>\n Burns challenged his teammate and former No. 1 pound-for-pound candidate Kamaru Usman<\/a> for the UFC championship in February 2021. He came up short via third-round knockout. He was a mainstay in the UFC’s welterweight rankings for years, with wins over Demian Maia<\/a>, Tyron Woodley<\/a> and Stephen Thompson<\/a>. He gave then-welterweight contender Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> all he could handle in a back-and-forth Fight of the Night in April 2022, but ultimately lost by unanimous decision.<\/p>\n Malott, who is from Ontario, Canada, earned his fourth consecutive win and could crack the UFC’s Top 10 rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett OkamotoApr 19, 2026, 01:30 PM CloseBrett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-616379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}