Joaquin Buckley thinks the UFC could learn a thing or two from the NFL and NBA when it comes to matchups. In an interview with Parry Punch, Buckley shared his belief that the UFC should stop letting fighters cherry-pick opponents and instead enforce matchups, just like teams in professional sports leagues are required to face each other.
While the comparison to team sports might not be a perfect fit, his point does make sense—he wants the best fighters to be consistently paired up against the best.
“You never have a situation where the Patriots don’t play the Eagles, or you have the Denver Nuggets not playing the Pistons. Everybody must go up against one another. There is no choice,”
According to Buckley, this “pick and choose” approach slows down the division and prevents fans from getting the big fights they really want to see. By enforcing mandatory matchups, he believes the UFC could speed things up and make the sport even more exciting.
His comments echo a sentiment shared by many who get frustrated when top contenders avoid fighting each other due to matchmaking strategies. Take UFC’s undisputed heavyweight champion, Jon Jones for instance. In his absence, Tom Aspinall won the interim title and kept the division moving along.
Upon his return, Jones was supposed to be fighting Aspinall to unite the titles but has since fought Stipe Miocic and continues to dodge Aspinall in favor of strategically convenient fights like ones with light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.
Now, whether the UFC would ever adopt a stricter approach as Buckley suggests is another story but it would be a fallacy to deny that the problem exists.
‘New Mansa‘ faced the problem himself as he now has to take on Colby Covington instead of Ian Garry at UFC Tampa.
While this time it was due to Shavkat Rakhmonov issuing an open challenge for the #1 title contender, Garry had previously refused to fight Buckley as well, claiming he was behind him in the rankings.
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But now, Buckley seems to have put that behind him and aims to finish ‘stale’ Covington on December 15.
Buckley accuses Colby of lying
During a press conference before their fight Covington, true to his “Chaos” persona, dismissed Buckley as irrelevant and even pretended not to know who he was.
In response, Buckley accused him of lying through his teeth and said what everyone already says about Covington and his MAGA persona.
“I feel like the dude that he portrays is obviously a character and everybody knows that. It got him far, but now it’s getting kind of old. It has no value anymore.”
Joaquin Buckley rips “lying” Colby Covington for no-selling him before #UFCTampa.
“(His persona is) getting kind of old. It has no value anymore.” pic.twitter.com/M1qrrARxap
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) December 11, 2024
With tensions high and both fighters exchanging verbal jabs, their matchup promises to be as fiery as the build-up. It will be interesting to see if Buckley can back up his words in the octagon or if Covington will once again prove that it’s not just his polarizing persona that keeps him in the spotlight.
