Joaquin Buckley didn’t hold back after his UFC Atlanta loss to Kamaru Usman. The welterweight contender snapped his win streak, but the real heat came after the bout—when Israel Adesanya publicly celebrated his downfall.
Adesanya went on his YouTube channel to mock Buckley, calling him “annoying” and admitting he was glad to see him lose. The former middleweight champ took it further, saying outright that he hates Buckley. That didn’t sit right with “New Mansa,” who unleashed a brutal response of his own.
“Tell me how you feel to my face though, instead of being like a ho,” Buckley fired back on his YouTube channel. “You all underneath the covers and shit. Like, ‘Mmm I hate that [expletive].’ Sweet motherf*r, because I don’t know why you on my dick anyway. You done your thing, you been at your spot, I’m working towards mine. You ain’t no real fighter. You want to be a little pretty boy. I would give you a sample, but I don’t like boy py.”
The rivalry between Joaquin Buckley and Israel Adesanya might have sparked from nothing, but now it’s full-blown personal and Buckley isn’t hiding his willingness to fight Adesanya, even if it means jumping back up to middleweight.
“You can get this work any given time,” he continued. “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 want to clown him. Oh, but I forgot, you’re Chinese. You ain’t another brother. The real African that runs that spot is Dricus Du Plessis.”
Buckley already had a face-to-face moment with Adesanya back at the UFC Performance Institute, where he told him directly they’d make a good fight. According to Buckley, Adesanya stayed quiet then, but decided to talk trash now that he’s behind a camera.
“He’s trying to be funny, he’s trying to use his platform to talk shit on me, but that really just shows me the potential of my name, and how big I’m becoming,” Buckley said. “Just like when I met his ass at the PI and I ran up on him, and was like, ‘Hey, bro, I think we’d be a good ass fight,’ [Adesanya] was quiet at the time.”
Buckley sees Adesanya’s hate as deeper than competition. He called out the hypocrisy of rooting against a fellow fighter chasing success, especially from someone who’s already held the top spot.
“He knows what it is to take an L, but to say that you hate a motherfr and you glad that they lost, you glad that they didn’t achieve their dreams is wild to me, bro,” Buckley said. “Like, bro, why the f you mad at me? What the f** did I do to you? I kind of find it funny that you hating on me, you need to be hating on the motherf****r that took your belt.”
Joaquin Buckley made a name for himself at middleweight, but his rise in the UFC’s welterweight division put him on a different trajectory. Even though Usman ended his streak, Buckley doesn’t plan to stay quiet. If Adesanya wants to settle it, Buckley is game—anytime, anywhere, inside or outside the UFC.
“We can really get busy if you want to,” Buckley said. “And guess what? It ain’t got to be competition with the UFC setting this up. We can get busy if you want to.”
As Buckley figures out his next move, he remains locked in and vocal. The fire is still burning, and if Israel Adesanya wants to throw hands, Joaquin Buckley isn’t going to wait for an invitation from the matchmakers.
