With a five-fight win streak since returning to the welterweight division, Joaquin Buckley now finds himself ranked inside the top 10 at 170-pounds. His latest win was also his biggest, stopping Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson at UFC 307 to climb to the #9-spot.
Now, Buckley is looking for another opponent that can put him into the title picture after beating the likes of Thompson, Nursulton Ruziboev and Vicente Luque. The issue he's encountering is that many of the big names ahead of him are not interested in taking the fight.
In order for Buckley to get within reach of a title shot, he will need another big name on his resume but that's not possible if he can't make this line up for him. In a recent interview with Inside Fighting, Buckley was asked who he thinks would accept a fight with him that's currently above him in the rankings.
He struggled to think of too many examples, picking out three names in the end with one of them being the current champion.
Accept a fight? That’s a hard one. I believe the ones that are true fighters and true martial artists who would love to step into the cage with me are JDM (Jack Della Maddalena), is one of them… Damn, that’s kinda crazy, when I really start to think about it. Ian Garry probably… Belal Muhammad, that’s it bro. That’s it. When you talk about really wanna step in the cage with me, I don’t think there’s a lot of dudes that went to step in there with me.
Buckley then proceeded to list several names that he doesn't think would agree to fight him, including Kamaru Usman who he called out after his most recent win.
Gilbert don’t want to step in there with me, Leon Edwards wouldn’t want to step in there with me, Colby Covington wouldn’t want to step in there with me. We see Usman didn’t want that work. Sean Brady blocked me from Instagram so he definitely don’t want to get the work. There’s not a lot of guys that’s willing to step in that cage with me, I’ll tell you that.
