Joaquin Buckley is doing his best to keep his full focus on Stephen Thompson at UFC 307, but some old beefs keep pulling him in different directions.
Perhaps the most interesting encounter was finally sitting down and hashing out his differences with UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier after they engaged in a fiery war of words earlier this year. The incident stemmed from Cormier criticizing Buckley’s decision to call out Conor McGregor following a win, which led to an ugly exchange on social media.
Buckley later said he hoped to meet up with Cormier prior to his fight at UFC 307 to settle their differences.
“I just got done talking to D.C.” Buckley revealed during UFC 307 media day. “That was cool. We was in front of the camera, I thought we was just going to be in the room by ourselves for a bit just to be able to talk like men.
“But it is what it is, we had a good conversation. A good interview. People will be able to see it. That’s what I thought it was going to be, off camera and just man to man, I think that’s the conversation I would rather have, I’d be more comfortable with if anything.”
Today I sit down with Joaquim Buckley as you know he and I had some issues about a call out few months ago. Today we sat down and discussed that and so much more. We also talked his fight this weekend vs Wonderboy! But as men we needed to talk and I believe we did that. Make… pic.twitter.com/G1Sras9nkx
— Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) October 2, 2024
Buckley also responded to former opponent Kevin Holland, who said on Wednesday that he chose a different location to stay outside of the UFC fighter hotel to avoid a potential run-in between them. Holland scored a TKO win over Buckley when they met back in 2020 but the rivalry apparently never ended afterwards.
For his part, Buckley says he has no issues with Holland and his grand plan didn’t really work anyways — because he’s not even staying at the fighter hotel.
“I don’t have an issue with Kevin Holland,” Buckley said. “I’m here to fight [Stephen Thompson] and get my paycheck. But if Kevin wants any beef or any problems, he’s just going to have to pull up on me. That’s all.”
When it comes to his actual fight on Saturday, Buckley told MMA Fighting prior to UFC 307 that he had no issue with Thompson outside of trying to further his own career by beating the two-time UFC title challenger.
Just after the fight was announced, Buckley joked that he was going to send “Wonderboy” to Karate Combat but that wasn’t a sly way to say he’s attempting to end Thompson’s career.
Instead, Buckley explained that he wants to dominate Thompson so thoroughly when they meet that the 41-year-old veteran won’t have any choice but to acknowledge his days of chasing a UFC title are over.
“It’s not about stopping his career, it’s about giving him a different career path,” Buckley said. “I know that once I beat him and how I beat him and the fashion [I beat him], he’s still in his mind wants to become a UFC champion — once I beat him, he knows that’s over.
“He don’t want to keep fighting trying to prove himself, especially fighting the younger bucks. I think he’s really going to face the fact and face the reality that once I beat him, this dream that I’ve got, I might as well let that go and become a [Karate Combat] champion. Because I think he can do that. I think he can become a champion in Karate Combat.”
