Joaquin Buckley’s last loss in MMA came in brutal fashion when he stepped into the cage with Sean Strickland’s teammate.
This Saturday, Joaquin Buckley takes on his toughest and most important test to date when he clashes against former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC Atlanta.
‘New Mansa’ is hopeful that with a win over the returning ‘Nigerian Nightmare’, he can secure himself a welterweight title shot next, shutting down the possible threat of Islam Makhachev.
Buckley is currently on an extremely impressive six-fight win streak with his last victory being a dominant win over controversial welterweight, Colby Covington.
The last time the 31-year-old suffered a loss inside the UFC Octagon was back in 2022 when he took on Sean Strickland‘s teammate, Chris Curtis, at UFC 282.
Buckley was brutally KO’d by Chris Curtis at UFC 282
After suffering a loss to Nassourdine Imavov in Paris in 2022, ‘New Mansa’ was then matched up with ‘Action Man’, who at the time had impressed with a few big wins but was then halted by Jack Hermansson.
At that point, Buckley had already made a name for himself amongst the UFC fans after scoring one of the greatest knockouts of all time against Impa Kasanganay.
In the opening round against Curtis, Buckley was the more active of the two, landing a few big shots with his boxing. Despite that, around two minutes into the opening round, Buckley was hit with a huge left hand but he ate it well.
In round two, Curtis came out and looked to walk down Buckley and put him on the back-foot. Again after some clashes in the pocket, Buckley went to land a left body kick but it was caught by Curtis.
‘The Action Man’ then unleashed a vicious left hand directly on the chin of ‘New Mansa’ which knocked him down and sent his head bouncing off the canvas. Curtis then followed up with some heavy ground-and-pound, putting Buckley to sleep.
Joe Rogan labeled Curtis’ knockout ‘the perfect left hand’
On the commentary team for the fight was UFC icon, Joe Rogan, who labeled Curtis’ knockout blow ‘the perfect left hand’.
“Boy, did he land well! Look at this, the kick comes, boom! He catches him with a perfect left hand, Buckley in all sorts of trouble… Boom! I mean, perfect left hand!” Joe Rogan said on the broadcast.
Since his brutal loss to Curtis, though, their careers have gone in a completely different direction as Buckley is now in title contention and Curtis has only won one fight in five since they clashed.