UFC welterweight Joaquin Buckley has received backing from Daniel Cormier in the ongoing UFC vs boxing debate.
Recently, Joaquin Buckley has gotten into a war of words with the likes of Shakur Stevenson and Terence Crawford over the quality of UFC in comparison to professional boxing. We all know that Buckley is someone who likes to voice his opinions, and he’s made no secret of how he feels regarding his manner.
In the cage, Joaquin Buckley is coming off the back of a loss to Kamaru Usman. However, given the skills he has at his disposal, we can’t imagine it will be too long before he begins his journey to getting back up the rankings.
In a recent video, Daniel Cormier explained why he agrees with Joaquin Buckley on this manner.
Daniel Cormier backs Joaquin Buckley
“Shakur Stevenson said the UFC could never be boxing – Joaquin Buckley was right,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “It doesn’t have to be boxing, because the reality is there’s no big fights like there were in the past. I want to be the boxing of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. If I was trying to be boxing, I would want to be boxing of that era and of that time. Boxing today isn’t necessarily what I would want to be, and what it used to be, because there just aren’t enough stars to make big fights.
“There aren’t enough big events to make us go back to the days when (Muhammad) Ali was fighting or when (Mike) Tyson was fighting, or when you had the ‘Four Kings’ and they were all fighting each other. I’m talking even the days of Lennox Lewis being the heavyweight champion. Even the Klitschko Brothers. It was different back then. Those fights brought more attention, and they felt bigger.”
“I understand today that when Canelo fought Terence Crawford, it felt like a big event,” Cormier said. Honestly, when I get super excited for these boxing fights, until you get young, exciting prospects that want to go out there and try to knock people out like the guys from the past, you’re gonna get the fight that we got where Terence Crawford, who showed once again why he’s the best, he just controlled Canelo Alvarez, who’s the biggest star of this generation. And then, it’s just not that fun. Honestly. It just wasn’t that fun.
“Whereas when you get to the UFC, it’s more fun, it’s more exciting, and it’s just better – and Joaquin Buckley was right. It’s just better – and I love boxing. I’ve got great friends in boxing. Andre Ward is a great buddy of mine in boxing. I love watching him fight, but boxing today just isn’t what boxing was before, and hat’s off to Joaquin Buckley for calling that sh*t out, because he should have called it out. We aren’t boxing. The UFC is better. It’s just the God-honest truth. It is what it is.”
Quotes via MMA Junkie
