Joaquin Buckley has accused Israel Adesanya of not being a “real fighter”, after the UFC stars offered their respective accounts on a run-in between them.
After Buckley suffered a one-sided decision loss to Kamaru Usman on Saturday (14 June), the latter’s friend Adesanya hit out at Buckley, saying on his YouTube channel: “I hate [him], bro. I don’t even use the word ‘hate’ lightly, but I hate [him], bro.
“Something about him just f*****g annoys me. The coolest thing about him is that kick [Buckley’s 2020 knockout of Impa Kasanganay]. I respect that.”
Then, describing a moment in which he met Buckley at the UFC Performance Institute, the former two-time middleweight champion said: “Literally, I’m just trying to chill, talk. [He says:] ‘Hey, man, we’ve gotta get this going, duh duh duh duh duh duh,’ like he’s rapping.
“Every single time. He’s just so f*****g annoying. At one point, I literally walked away while he was talking... and I think he didn’t like that, so he went against me since then. But f*** the dude. Maybe I’m a hater, bro, maybe I’m just a hater.”
Welterweight Buckley then used his own YouTube channel to fire back at Adesanya, saying on Thursday (19 June): “He knows what it is to take an L, but to say that you hate a motherf***** and you’re glad that they lost, you’re glad that they didn’t achieve their dreams is wild to me, bro.
“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’re hating on me, you need to be hating on the motherf****** that took your belt.
“He’s trying to be funny, he’s trying to use his platform to talk s*** on me, but that really just shows me the potential of my name, and how big I’m becoming. Just like when I met his ass at the [Performance Institute], 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.
“But see, I’m man enough to come up to your face. Tell me how you feel to my face, bro [...] You’re all underneath the covers like: ‘Man, I hate that [guy].’ You ain’t no real fighter. You want to be a little pretty boy.”
American Buckley, 31, appeared to be closing in on a welterweight title shot before his loss to Usman, a former champion in the division. Meanwhile, Adesanya, 35, finds himself in the unusual position of riding a three-fight losing streak.
After regaining the middleweight title from old rival Alex Pereira in April 2023, the “Last Stylebender” lost the belt to Sean Strickland that September. Then, last August, Adesanya suffered a submission loss to Strickland’s successor Dricus Du Plessis. The Nigerian-born New Zealander attempted to bounce back against Nassourdine Imavov in February, but he was stopped in round two.
Adesanya’s first reign with the belt lasted three years and featured five successful title defences, with those same numbers applying to Usman’s welterweight title run.
After surviving a difficult fifth round to outpoint Buckley, Usman, who had employed his trademark wrestling impressively in the first four frames, held back tears in the cage.
“It’s been a while,” he said. “I needed to get that monkey off my back. I know I’m still able to do this at the highest level. Sometimes when you’re going up against a young, hungry guy like that – very talented, very aggressive – you’ve got to pull out the skills and use the experience.
“Before I go, I just wanted to say that I have a lot of emotions coming into this one [...] a lot of things that I had to battle back from. I’m holding back all the emotions. Unfortunately, my daughter can’t be here with me tonight. That’s another long story. But man, I just want to say thank you to everybody – thank you to my family, my coaches who kept me going, Buckley for bringing the challenge.”
