‘Embarrassed and Humiliated’ Joaquin Buckley Admits Seeing Different Levels in Kamaru Usman’s Game

Jaoquin Buckley comes clean about his latest devastating loss against Kamaru Usman at UFC Atlanta.

‘Embarrassed and Humiliated’ Joaquin Buckley Admits Seeing Different Levels in Kamaru Usman’s Game

Jaoquin Buckley has no excuses for his loss against Kamaru Usman (via X)

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Last weekend at UFC Atlanta, fans witnessed the mighty comeback of former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman in dominant fashion. The ‘Nigerian Nightmare’ delivered a technical masterclass and convincingly won the fight by unanimous decision on all three judges’ scorecards. Going into the fight, Joaquin Buckley was the betting favourite; however, his overall performance turned out to be flat.

Ahead of the fight, Buckley had made several bold claims about running through Usman, who is now 38 years old. ‘New Mansa’ even spoke about potentially fighting for the welterweight title against current pound-for-pound king Islam Makhachev soon. However, following the disappointing loss, Buckley appeared shocked and recently shared details about his performance in a new YouTube video.

Every round he took me down, kept me there. I couldn’t get back up to my feet. I’m looking at [referee] Mike Beltran, like, ‘Bro, stand us up at least one time, let me get back up to my feet. I’m not going to lie to y’all I feel so embarrassed because of that loss. I feel so humiliated because of that loss. At the same time, I’ve got to bow my head. Usman showed me who he was. That night, it really showed it’s levels to this game.

Buckley is well known for his explosiveness but wasn’t able to showcase it at all against Usman during the entire fight. Usman, despite having solid striking skills, chose not to use them and maintained relentless ground pressure throughout all five rounds. In the final rounds, the veteran thought of finishing by knockout but remembered his infamous Leon Edwards loss and stopped himself.

Following the win, Usman has now firmly positioned himself as the new top contender in the UFC welterweight division. The fighter currently wants to face the winner of the upcoming Jack Della Maddalena vs. Islam Makhachev welterweight title bout. On the other hand, Buckley has now found himself caught in a different beef outside the current title conversation.

Jaoquin Buckley slams former UFC champion

Before UFC Atlanta, Kamaru Usman and his African friend Israel Adesanya were both coming off three-fight losing streaks each. Francis Ngannou also showed up to support Usman during the weigh-ins, which immediately captured the attention of many fans. Usman bounced back with a big win, and ‘Izzy’ was extremely happy and proud of the veteran fighter’s brilliant performance.

Joaquin Buckley gives his response to Israel Adesanya
Joaquin Buckley gives his response to Israel Adesanya (via Imago)

As usual, Adesanya shared his live reaction on YouTube and roasted Joaquin Buckley during the fighter’s entrance walk at UFC Atlanta. The former middleweight champion even revealed that he hates Buckley for absolutely no particular reason, calling it pure bad energy. In his latest YouTube video, ‘New Mansa’ responded to Adesanya’s comments and gave a sharp, befitting reply to the criticism.

You ain’t no real fighter. You wanna be a little pretty boy. I would give you a sample but I don’t like boy p***y. You can get this work any given time. I can give it to you. But I just hate fighters like you because you tryna downplay on somebody that’s trying to work towards something. What you hating on me for? You did what you did. But look at another brother trying to make it up and you wanna clown him. Oh, but I forgot, you’re Chinese. You ain’t another brother.

Once a dominant champ, Adesanya has now failed to fully return to his former elite self inside the octagon. In his most recent fight, he was TKOed by rising top contender Nassourdine Imavov in a shocking upset loss. It’ll be interesting to see whether the ‘Last Stylebender’ can stage a similar comeback like Usman did recently.