Joaquin Buckley was taken aback by Usman’s dismissal of his callout after his win over Stephen Thompson.
The welterweight fighter scored this impressive win at UFC 307 and felt it was time to take on a bigger opponent. Buckley called out former champion Kamaru Usman, but it seems the former champion has little regard for him and told him to get in line.
The Nigerian fighter is more content trading insults with champ Belal Muhammad. However, it is more befitting for the Usman to face Buckley. The former champ is fresh off a three-fight loss and hasn’t been in the octagon since his middleweight loss to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294.
“That’s the funny thing: Who’s in line?” Buckley said in an interview with Parry Punch. “The crazy part about Belal was, like, Usman doesn’t even deserve a title shot. Plus, he said Shavkat is an easier fight than Usman. That’s what I believe that the UFC is going to make, the Shavkat vs Belal. Usman, nobody calls him out, that’s still a great name. The last fight he had was with Khamzat (Chimaev), so it’s been a whole year. Come and get this work. Come and get paid, at least.”
He’s just waiting on the opportunity to have that big fight, which is fighting for a title. But my thing is, that sh*t shouldn’t be given to you,” Buckley said. “You should work for that.
“Just because you’ve been a former champion, just because you held the belt for a good amount of time, doesn’t give you the right to come back and just be like, ‘Aight, I get to fight for the belt again.’ You’re still not accounting those three losses you done had. So prove to the world that you still have the ability to fight for a belt.”
Despite three straight losses, Usman is on the mind of UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad and could potentially earn a title shot soon.
Before his back-to-back losses, Usman was one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world. A win over Buckley could be the catalyst for a late-career run for the future UFC Hall of Famer.
