Sonnen held an impromptu one hour Q&A with fans after Burns intentionally shared his phone number over Twitter.
Don’t mess with Gilbert Burns, or the dude may dox your phone number.
That’s the lesson Chael Sonnen just learned after casually announcing that Burns had retired from mixed martial arts. He must have been annoyed by his phone suddenly blowing up, so he decided to return the favor to Sonnen … by posting the “American Gangster’s” phone number on X (formerly Twitter).
In a new YouTube video discussing the doxxing, Sonnen kept his cool. It’s hard to get angry, he explained, considering he did the same thing to Chad Mendes in the lead-up to his big fight against Conor McGregor. That was over Chad ignoring his messages, so he knows how to be petty.
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X – Gilbert Burns
Sonnen insisted he wasn’t being petty when discussing Gilbert Burns on ESPN’s Good Guy, Bad Guy with Daniel Cormier. They were going over the welterweight rankings and he shared some information he thought he knew about Gilbert’s current status. “Durinho” hasn’t fought since a September 2024 loss to Sean Brady, his third defeat in a row.
“I tell Daniel I love the idea of Gilbert, I know he’s still in the rankings, but he’s left the pool,” Sonnen said. “Gilbert Burns retired. He officially retired after his last fight. And guys, to this moment in time I still think I’m right. No. I’m clearly not right. Somewhere that got mis-programmed in my head, but I can still pause and think back — I remember Gilbert saying this.”
“So Gilbert goes on Twitter and he plays the clip and he says that is so disrespectful. ‘Hey, Chael. I’d like to talk to you about this. Is your phone number still —’ and he posts my phone number.”
Chael then spends 45 minutes answering calls from random fans, with some trash talking him but most just happy to shoot the s— with the legendary trash talker.
As cool as he’s playing it, the situation is still a big headache for Sonnen.
“Many security agents have 2 factor authentication which are tied to this number including, in my case, crypto wallets,” Sonnen said.
As someone who still has to keep a Motorola from 2015 in my travel bag because there are recovery codes in a Google Authenticator app that won’t transfer over, I know his pain. So good on Chael for taking this all with some level of good humor. That phone number is toast.