Joaquin Buckley’s next walk to the Octagon will be his last. The UFC welterweight announced Thursday, October 22, in an Instagram video that he will retire after one more fight, five days after Mike Malott knocked him out in the UFC Edmonton main event.
The push came from his grandmother. Buckley said she was upset after the knockout, prayed for him over the phone and told him to walk away from the sport.
That fight right there, it was devastating, and it really affected my family, the people that’s closest to me. Listening to my grandmother speak, and listening to her pray for me over the phone, and really being upset, and her telling me to retire and really kind of get away from fighting, and really kind of get away from the sport because your mind is your biggest tool and your biggest asset, and you don’t want to lose it.
Buckley said it took time to accept, but he came around. “I took some time, I slept on it, and I prayed about it, and I realized that my grandmother is right,” he said, per the transcript published by MMA Fighting.
Why Buckley Wants One More
Buckley asked his grandmother for one last fight because he does not want his career to end on a defeat.
I told her to just pray for me, and allow me to grace the octagon one more time, and to have the strength to step out there one more time, because I can’t leave on a loss.
He also pointed to his children and the wear of his schedule. “With me already having 18 fights within the organization within six years, I’m already knowing that I’m a workhorse. So, really, I’ve got to really save myself from any more mileage and any more damage,” Buckley said.
In the post caption, he thanked his grandmother for “your honesty and prayers” and wrote that he is doing this “for my longevity and for my babies.” He closed the video with a promise: “This the last one. But we’re gonna make our last one the best one.”
Three Straight Losses
The decision follows the roughest stretch of Buckley’s UFC run. Malott finished him with a knee at 2:32 of the second round on October 17 at Rogers Place, according to the official UFC Edmonton results. Malott’s knee was Buckley’s third straight loss, following a unanimous decision defeat to Kamaru Usman in June 2025 in Atlanta and another to Sean Brady at UFC 328 in May 2026.
Before the skid, Buckley won six straight after his move to welterweight, a run that included stoppages of Stephen Thompson and Colby Covington. He is now 21-9 overall and 11-7 in the UFC.
The announcement is a shift from fight week. After the loss, Buckley said he planned to keep fighting, and Dana White joked at the post-fight press conference that he had Buckley cut over a weigh-in handshake snub (here is how White responded). No opponent or date has been announced for Buckley’s final fight.
