Joaquin Buckley is not broken by his defeat to Kamaru Usman at UFC on ESPN 69 and still intends to put together a legendary career.
Buckley (22-7 MMA, 11-5 UFC) suffered his first defeat since dropping to the welterweight division Saturday when he was outworked by former champion Usman (21-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) en route to a unanimous decision loss at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
Prior to the encounter with Usman, he had put together a 6-0 run in the division that included notables such as Vicente Luque, Stephen Thompson and Colby Covington. He didn’t have the necessary answers to thwart Usman’s offensive grappling, though, and now he’s dealing with the aftermath of a tough night at the office.
Buckley issued his first statement since the fight Sunday, claiming Usman was “more concerned about holding me than hurting me” in the octagon and stating he still intends to become “one of the greats” in UFC history (via Instagram):
Hand wasn’t raised last night but I am still victorious and will be one of the greats ☝️
This trip has been beyond amazing and I wouldn’t change a thing that happened in my fight camp everything was perfectly planned I just didn’t execute like I know I could… we wanted to land early damage on Usman and get him moving back but he did a good job neutralizing threats with takedowns
But don’t get it twisted usman was more concerned about holding me than hurting me in this fight but he did what he felt was necessary to win and so can’t be mad at him Congrats to @usman84kg and his Team and @francisngannou I saw message 🫡Excited about the welterweight divisionSee ya when I see ya 👋
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC Atlanta: Joaquin Buckley issues statement on loss to Kamaru Usman