Joaquin Buckley takes his loss in stride after a nasty second round knockout Under Mike Malotti in Edmonton last night.
Buckley played a criminal all week and built up a lot of hate in Edmonton to the point where chants of “F—k you, Buckley!” broke out regularly during his main event fight. And even though the fight didn’t go the way he wanted – for third fight in a row— he was happy with the work he did in the build-up to the match.
“The fight didn’t go my way, not at all,” Buckley said in an Instagram video shortly after the loss. “There’s a lot of expectations, man, that I’m going to go out there and knock Malotti out. But at the end of the day, people were entertained and people enjoyed the show.”
“I really believe what I did helped bring more eyes to the game at the end of the day,” he continued. “So no matter what people say, no matter what’s going on, man, I’m just going to go back to work and keep pushing for my name. I’m Joaquin Buckley.”
“I’m not stopping, I’m moving forward. I’m not going blind. I’m going to show you the team that I’m with, the team that I’m building and the thing that I want to do. Because at the end of the day, man, I’m a fighter that fights.”
It wasn’t too long ago that Buckley was on a six-game winning streak that culminated Cheering Colby Covington’s ass in December 2024. Then came tough losses to Kamaru Usman, Sean Brady and now Mike Malotti. Buckley didn’t fare too badly against Malott…the first round was considered by many to be a toss-up. But Malott unleashed Buckley’s big power and few could have survived that monster knee that landed squarely on the chin of “The New Mansa”.
Let’s see how Buckley and his team react to this latest setback and how they plan to bounce back.