The UFC is such a big machine that it can be extremely difficult to get individual attention, even if you happen to be the holder of the 2020 knockout of the year. That’s the message Joaquin Buckley sent after his UFC Vegas 48 fight against Abdul Razak AlHassan, which ended in a split decision victory for Buckley.
Weeks out from his fight, Buckley made the eyebrow raising decision to drop in on controversial self defence coach Dale Brown of Detroit Urban Survival Training or D.U.S.T. for short. Brown had become a viral sensation on TikTok and other social media networks as users uploaded footage of him disarming gun and knife toting students with suspicious ease.
Say what you will about his actual martial arts abilities, the man can get some eyes. And Buckley thanked him during his post-fight interview with Paul Felder for promoting his bout more than the UFC.
“When I realized the UFC wasn’t promoting like it should, they only promoted well at the end, but I made sure that all the eyes, you see, I got my man right here,” Buckley said. “Come here, Dale, come here! That’s why I brought this man in here, to help promote this fight. I probably never had as many people watching this fight.”
“We got DJ Khaled out there, Snoop Dogg, all the celebrities watching both kings in here. Both knockout artists. We go to f—king war and show that we can go three rounds.”
Before this, Buckley was best known for his collosal spinning back kick knockout of Impa Kasanganay, itself a viral sensation that ended up being seen over 65 million times.
But the UFC is a ‘what have you done for me lately’ type promotion, and Buckley never managed to capitalize on that October 2020 finish. A year and a half later and he barely scraped onto the opening bout of a pretty lackluster fight night event.
Sensing he was on his own for generating attention, he brought Dale Brown in. And while we’re not big fans of UFC fighters rehabilitating McDojo and Bullshido trainers, you can’t argue with the results: Buckley did indeed stand out from the pack attention wise on Saturday night despite almost losing a razor thin decision to AlHassan.