Joaquin Buckley is taking his loss in stride following a nasty second round knockout at the hands of Mike Malott in Edmonton last night.
Buckley played the villain all week and built up a lot of animosity in Edmonton, to the point where chants of “F–k you, Buckley!” broke out regularly during his main event fight. And while the fight didn’t go the way he wanted to— for the third fight in a row— he sounded pleased with the work he did building up the bout.
“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, for me to go out there and knock Malott out. But at the end of the day, people were entertained, people enjoyed the show.”
“I truly believe that what I did, at the end of the day, it helped bring more eyes to the game,” he continued. “So regardless of what people say, no matter what’s going on, man, I’m just going to get back to work and just keep putting on for the name. I am Joaquin Buckley.”
“I’m not going to stop, I’m going to keep moving forward. I ain’t going to be in the dark. I’m going to show you guys the team that I’m with, the team that I’m building, and the thing 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 fight winning streak, culminating in an ass whooping of Colby Covington in December 2024. Then came tough losses to Kamaru Usman, Sean Brady, and now Mike Malott. Buckley wasn’t doing bad against Malott … the first round was considered a toss-up by many. But Malott was launching a lot of power Buckley’s way, and few could have survived that monster of a knee that landed right on the chin of “New Mansa.”
We’ll see how Buckley and his team react to this latest setback and how they plan to bounce back.