YouTube channel<\/a> days away from a UFC 322 main event clash between 170-pound champion Jack Della Maddalena and Islam Makhachev in New York, and said that Usman is the next deserving contender given his history in the sport.<\/p>\n\u201cI truly believe that Usman is the rightful next person to fight for that belt,\u201d Buckley said. \u201cYou got a great fight between \u2018JDM\u2019 and Islam that\u2019s gonna happen, and regardless of who wins that fight, whether it\u2019s JDM or Islam, I truly believe that Usman should be next to fight for that belt. Because yet again, he has accomplished so much, has done so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve seen Dana White on the Pound 4 Pound podcast talking about Usman being the welterweight GOAT over Georges St-Pierre. I gotta respect him, right? Because Usman, at the end of the day, has already solidified who he is as a fighter, even moving up and fighting a person like Khamzat [Chimaev] on 10 days notice, still giving that boogeyman a lot of trouble and a lot of problems. And if it would have been a proper five-round fight, he probably would have got Khamzat out of it. He probably would have finished him. You gotta respect that man and let him go ahead and fight for his strap again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buckley was called out by Gabriel Bonfim following his recent UFC main event win over Randy Brown, but complained \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d when he will enter the octagon next because no name big enough has asked to face him since his clash with Usman in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been really kind of feeling some type of way that ever since my fight with Kamaru Usman my name kind of went silent, right?\u201d Buckley said. \u201cA lot of guys in my division, you know, I\u2019m like Voldemort, they don\u2019t wanna say my name.\u201d<\/p>\n
If it was up to Buckley, his next bout would be against Shavkat Rakhmonov.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019all already know that I\u2019m coming back, bro, and I\u2019m coming back with a vengeance,\u201d Buckley said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want just no random-ass fighter. Give me a f*cking name. Give me somebody that can level me up too. Because like I said, I\u2019ve been putting on these promotions. I\u2019ve been talking my shit for a long time. I need another big name. And I\u2019m a shout them out right here. I\u2019m a do it right here, right now. Shavkat! You said you wanna come back? Early Feb? Come see your boy, Buck! Cause you was always chirping and saying, Buck easy work, light work. Then show the world that. You\u2019ve been M.I.A. for a minute and we\u2019ve been waiting on you. And I think that\u2019s an excellent fight for me and Shavkat to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unbeaten in 19 professional fights with a 7-0 run under the UFC banner, Rakhmonov hasn\u2019t fought since a decision victory over Ian Machado Garry in December 2024 as he is currently dealing with serious knee injuries. Rakhmonov seems to be angling for an early 2026 return to action.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then after we do that, I believe once I knock out Shavkat I\u2019m next for that belt as well,\u201d Buckley said. \u201cBut you already know, if Usman go for that belt and he just happen to win, I love my brother but that\u2019s when the rematch either gotta be made, or my man gotta move up. But either way, I\u2019m coming for that throne.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several top-ranked welterweights are booked to compete over the past two weeks, with Leon Edwards facing Carlos Prates and Sean Brady taking on Michael Morales on Nov. 15 at Madison Square Garden, and Garry flying to Doha to take on ex-champion Belal Muhammad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIan Garry. Y\u2019all know how we talked about him and his wife, right?\u201d Buckley said. \u201cYou talk about Sean Brady. He still got me blocked on Instagram. You talk about JDM. I talked about giving him a free nose job, right? And even this one that\u2019s moving out to the weight class now. These guys just don\u2019t want to say my name, right? Look, if I was just so much easy work and I wasn\u2019t as talented as a lot of you guys say, which is the UFC fans, then think about this, why aren\u2019t these guys calling me out? I\u2019m still No. 7 in the world, I still got a great rank, and I still got a good name.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut these guys, they\u2019re going to dodge me like the plague. And like I said, respect to Usman because he went through that threat, right? He fought me, and he was able to get his hand raised and be victorious. But he still knew that the threat that he had, which was me, that he knew that anytime I was on my feet it was a potential that I could knock him out. And he already knows himself that I\u2019m gonna give a lot of guys problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buckley was on a six-fight winning streak prior to his loss to Usman, a welterweight run that included victories over Colby Covington, Stephen Thompson and Vicente Luque.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, come on now, I\u2019m the biggest name in the welterweight division and I\u2019m gonna keep shouting it out,\u201d Buckley said. \u201cI\u2019m gonna keep saying it because nobody gives the type of fights that I\u2019ve been doing. And the 170 weight class, where all these guys have started there in their career since 2020 or 2021, they haven\u2019t put on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 within one year that I didn\u2019t put on, right? Not only just knocking out ranked opponents, but going out there and promoting their fights ahead of time, going out there and doing meet-and-greets, going out there and doing seminars, going out there and just being a performer like I am.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nobody in the UFC that works harder than Buckley. Like I said, the numbers is gonna go up at the end of the day, but I just find it funny that it took one man out of a whole division to say my name. That\u2019s got to mean something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up next for Buckley, it was announced Thursday he is replacing an injured Corey Anderson to wrestle Iowa State All-American Pat Downey at a Real American Freestyle event on Nov. 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joaquin Buckley is impatiently waiting for his next fight to be booked in the UFC, and still believes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-281338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}