Joaquin Buckley has spoken. Heavy.com reported Sunday that the welterweight issued a statement after getting knocked out by Mike Malott in the UFC Edmonton main event. We haven’t been able to verify the exact wording of the post, so you won’t find his words in quotation marks here. The fact that he said anything at all matters, though, because the last 48 hours of Buckley’s week were loud.
Rewind to Friday. Clips posted by Happy Punch showed Buckley refusing to shake Dana White’s hand during fight week. That’s a bold move to make toward your boss two days before you headline a card in your opponent’s home country.
Then Saturday happened. Malott, the Canadian, put Buckley to sleep in Round 2 in front of a crowd that came to see exactly that. Championship Rounds and Spinnin Backfist both had the finish online within minutes. At the post-fight press conference, a reporter asked White about the handshake snub, and White went for the deadpan: “As soon as he lost, I told Hunter to cut him.” A beat later came the punchline: “I’m f*cking joking.” I’ll admit White landed that joke better than Buckley landed anything in Round 2.
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Who Buckley Is and What He Lost
Buckley, 32, out of St. Louis, now sits at 21-9. He was No. 8 in the Meta UFC welterweight rankings as of Sept. 19, which made this a real main event with real ranking stakes. Knockout Daily’s Cagefile data now has him at No. 26. This is a guy whose spinning back kick knockout of Impa Kasanganay in 2020 became the most-liked tweet in UFC history, and he climbed from viral moment to legit top-10 welterweight. Losing a main event by knockout is a hard way to give that ground back.
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Malott moves to 15-2-1. He was No. 11 in the Meta rankings as of Sept. 5 and checks in at No. 10 in Knockout Daily’s data. The former Team Alpha Male striking coach, who once cornered Urijah Faber and Cody Garbrandt, has been stacking finishes since his 2022 UFC debut. That includes a second-round knockout of Charlie Radtke at UFC 315.
What’s Next
Neither man has a fight booked. Malott just knocked out a top-10 guy at home in a main event, so he has every right to ask for another ranked name, and I’d love to hear him call one out. Buckley needs a reset fight and maybe a handshake with White. The handshake costs nothing.
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