urge <\/a>him to leave the sport made him reconsider the risks of continuing his career.<\/p>\n\u201cListening to my grandmother speak and listening to her pray for me over the phone, and really being upset, and her telling me to retire and really kind of get away from fighting and get away from the sport because your mind is your biggest tool and your biggest asset, and you don’t want to lose it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After reflecting on her advice, Buckley decided he wanted one final appearance inside the Octagon. He admitted that walking away after a defeat would be difficult, particularly because his children are a major motivation behind his fighting career.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, with that being said, I just told her to pray for me and allow me to grace that octagon just one more time, because I can’t leave on a loss,\u201d Buckley added.<\/p>\n
Buckley Wants One Last Fight Before Retirement<\/p>\n
Buckley most recently suffered a second-round knockout defeat to Mike Malott in the UFC Edmonton main event last Saturday,\u00a0extending his losing streak to three fights. Before the setback, he had put together a six-fight winning streak, including victories over Stephen Thompson and Colby Covington.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite\u00a0the difficult stretch, Buckley wants to make his final fight count. He hasn’t announced\u00a0an opponent or date for his farewell bout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis the last one,\u201d Buckley said. \u201cBut we’re gonna make the last one the best one.\u201d <\/p>\n
For\u00a0Buckley, the decision marks a significant shift after years of competing at the highest level. His final appearance will offer him one more opportunity to leave the sport on his own terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joaquin Buckley plans to retire after his next UFC fight, revealing how his knockout loss to Mike Malott…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,192375,638,82,640,320083],"class_list":["post-943949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-joaquin-buckley","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-fight-night-buckley-vs-malott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943949","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=943949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}