Joaquin Buckley Refused to Shake Mike Malott’s Hand. Malott Knocked Him Out in Round Two.
Joaquin Buckley spent Friday in Edmonton refusing to shake two hands. On Saturday the owner of one of them knocked him out.
Mike Malott finished Buckley 2:32 into the second round of the UFC’s main event at Rogers Place, with a sequence officially logged as a knee and a follow-up punch. Buckley’s mouthpiece flew out. He fell forward and could not get his legs back under him.
The handshakes he would not take
At Friday’s ceremonial weigh-in, Malott offered his hand first, the normal courtesy between two headliners. Buckley left it hanging. Dana White then put his own hand out, and Buckley looked past him as though nobody were standing there.
Then he sat down for a scheduled interview with UFC correspondent McKenzie Pavacich and said nothing for roughly a minute while she asked about his camp, his mindset and fighting in his opponent’s country. The promotion’s own post on the segment read: “He didn’t say a single word during this interview.” Pavacich told the broadcast he would “stay locked in” and handed it back.
Buckley still has not explained any of it, and that silence is the most interesting thing about his week.
What was eating him, as best anyone can tell
Two days before the weigh-in, Buckley told CBS Sports he remains bothered by the welterweight title shot he did not get in 2025, when he was riding a six-fight win streak and the opportunity went elsewhere. “I knew that I had the tools to give [current champion] Islam [Makhachev] some real problems,” he said. “I just always think about why I didn’t get that shot.”
No pay dispute has been reported here, no contract fight, no public shot at White by name. What exists on the record is a 32-year-old who believes the promotion skipped him at his peak and who had lost two straight before Saturday.
His read on Malott during fight week was dismissive. “He’s just a pretty face,” Buckley said. “Right now he’s in my way.”
Malott was not in the way
Malott is 34, Canadian, and had won five in a row coming in, including a third-round stoppage of Gilbert Burns in Winnipeg in April that earned a Performance of the Night bonus. He moved to 15-2-1 and pushed his unbeaten run on Canadian soil to seven fights.
On the finish: “I saw the mouth guard fly out. He fell kinda face first. I was like, okay, I’m pretty sure this is a wrap.” He said he could not walk away and risk letting Buckley recover, so he threw one more.
In the cage he described himself as soft-spoken and, with an expletive in the middle, hard-hitting. Both halves held up.
White laughed it off, mostly
Asked at the post-fight press conference why Buckley had ignored him, White said, “I have no idea.” He kept going: “All of these guys deal with fight week differently. You can’t take any of that type of stuff personal.”
He did reach for a punchline, saying that as soon as Buckley lost he told UFC executive Hunter Campbell to cut him, then said in the same breath that he was joking. Nobody should read that as a roster move.
Buckley resurfaced on Instagram on Sunday. “The fight didn’t go my way, not at all,” he said, acknowledging the expectation that he would be the one scoring a knockout, and promised to get back to work. He did not mention the handshake or the silent interview.
He is 21-9 now and on his first three-fight losing streak in the UFC. Makhachev holds the title, Carlos Prates is reportedly next in line for it, and Malott just took the ranking spot of the man who would not look at him.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
