UFC Atlanta: Usman vs Buckley - Jun 14 ??

[sirdobbo89]

I ended up skim watching all of this. 

Rodolfo Bellato should stick to fighting, because he's a terrible, terrible actor. In the end, he got nothing out of it but a no contest. I kind of get the feeling that the commentators, particularly Cruz really wanted to call Bellato out on it but just kept parroting that they'd never seen anything like it. 

Usman showed if you can't stuff his takedowns, you're knackered. Buckley couldn't and that's why he was soundly beat. Sounds like there's been a fair bit going on in his personal life based on his post fight octagon interview. Is Della Maddalena's next fight booked? I haven't a clue. 

[Dai]

Thought the main card flipped between completley forgetable to boring. As much as people criticise the Apex, here you have a crowd and some decent names on the card, and it still produces a crap main show. Cant even be arsed to go through it in detail, but the main card started off in the worst possible way with two crap fights, with the crowd booing both. Picked up a bit then, but then the Rose fight was boring, and Pat Barry's constant shite talking made things twice as bad. Between him and Sayif Saud, it becomes very irritating to me when its just constant bollocks being said, and its as if they intentionally leave the Mics open near them. Its not as if you have good commentary to drown it out either, as you had Dom Cruz stinking that up too. There was that one moment when it was clearly a headbutt affecting the other guy, and the replay showed clear as day that the knee didnt land, but it still took Dom about 5 replays to get to grips with what happened. 

Main event was OK, but it was clear from R1 that Buckley had nothing for Usman on the ground, so large parts of this were fairly dull. 

Edited June 16, 2025 by Dai

[Zebra Kid Mark]

I did not think that Usman had it in him to turn back the clock and beat Buckley.

How washed up must Colby be for Buckley to be able to pulverise him in 3 rounds and then barely land a scratch on Usman over 5 rounds.

I don't want to see Usman or Belal get title shots anytime soon so I would be in favour of pairing those two up just to eliminate one of them from the equation.

Has Rose gone from being one of the most exciting to watch fighters to one of the most boring? She used to be must watch TV not so long ago, nowadays, she has had stinker after stinker, what happened?

Prelims were great, main card wasn't. 

[Bruce85]

Yeah this wasn’t very good was it. It looked like it should be a decent card on paper, and the prelims were good but it all went downhill after the Craig up kick! I thought the main card was really dull and uninteresting. 
 

It was good to see Usman get back in the win column and you can’t fault his tactics, I think a loss here would have been the beginning of the end. Not sure what’s next for him but he really shouldn’t be back in the title picture yet. 

[Egg Shen]

 

[wandshogun09]

Yeah it’s becoming an increasing thing lately but this one didn’t really do it for me. I wasn’t as high on the card going in as some of you but it looked decent. That’s about all it was in the end. Decent in places but just very unremarkable overall.

Was nice to see Kamaru Usman back in the win column though. I’m not sure if this says more about Buckley just not being all he was being cracked up to be though. I touched on it in the opening post but his rise has been built on beating fading, ageing names like Wonderboy and Covington. I still picked him to win, mostly based on Usman’s layoff and my doubts about his knees and stuff. But he really took Buckley to school for the first four rounds here. And let’s be honest, this isn’t prime Usman we’re seeing now. Felt like this kind of showed Buckley isn’t ever gonna be on that level. If he can’t beat Usman coming off a long layoff, he’s not beating the younger Welterweights at the top of the division currently. Especially now his lack of grappling has been highlighted and a few of the top guys have the capability to exploit it like Usman did here.

Thought this was cool though…

Buckley’s a bit annoying sometimes and a bit of a gobshite but he’s taken this loss better than most would. I don’t necessarily know if that’s a good thing in terms of his future though. He seems a bit too comfortable with the loss really. But fair play to him for not coming up with a bunch of excuses like some fighters (*cough* JULIANNA PENA *cough*) have been known to do.

On 6/19/2025 at 11:21 AM, Bruce85 said:

Not sure what’s next for him but he really shouldn’t be back in the title picture yet. 

Usman’s pushing for the title shot now as if it’s the obvious choice. Like it’d be crazy to go with anyone else. I’m with you. He shouldn’t be next. I’d have thought Shavkat or Brady would be at the front of the line for a shot at Maddalena. I’d actually rather see Usman vs Belal, to be honest. Probably wouldn’t be a great fight to watch but it feels like it makes sense now and there’s a bit of beef there as well apparently. Something to do with them getting into it on Usman’s podcast quite recently and Belal claims he got the better of the back and forth and Usman hasn’t released the podcast as a result. Something like that. Who knows what to believe? Wouldn’t mind seeing them fight though. But, in 2025, I wouldn’t even be shocked if we get Maddalena vs Usman for the gold next. I’ve given up trying to work out the logic of what they’re doing anymore. If they think they’ll make a penny more by putting Usman in there over Shavkat or Brady, they’ll do it. And Usman is a former champ and name in the division. Don’t be surprised if it happens.

Rose Namajunas in snoozer shocker. Honestly this was a big part of why I wasn’t as jazzed about this card going in. Rose is just so dull to watch now that any time I see her name on a card these days it actually takes my enthusiasm for the card as a whole down a couple of notches. Doesn’t help that she always seems to be either in the main or co-main. I’ve said it a lot but at this point she really does resemble nothing of the woman who beat Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Zhang Weili twice apiece years ago. There’s no sense of aggression or urgency to find or create finishing opportunities anymore so her fights tend to fall into a pattern where they just look like she’s sparring or coasting. Nothing against Miranda Maverick but she’s a fighter Rose would’ve smoked at her best. She just seems like her heart’s not in it anymore and she’s going through the motions. Pat Barry constantly talking utter cobblers in the corner doesn’t help either. It’s a shame to say it but I’ve got no desire to see Rose fight again.

Chuffed to see Raoni Barcelos extend Cody Garbrandt’s plummet into obscurity. Fuck him. Wasn’t much of a fight and I thought Cody’s performance was terrible. He looks as washed up as the dishes in my kitchen. All week it was the same old Garbrandt fight week bollocks on my timeline. Twats putting up pics and clips of his win over Cruz and going ‘if this version of Cody shows up…’ Sorry, no. There’s no magical ‘version’ of him that he can tap into. It’s like when people point to McGregor’s win over Alvarez and say ‘if that version of Conor fought Khabib’. No. The difference was he was fighting Khabib and not Alvarez. Different styles altogether and Khabib’s style just happened to be all wrong for the rapey little prick. In Garbrandt’s case, that Cruz fight was in 2016. It’s been 9 fucking years. It was one night, a one-off great performance where he got his tactics just right thanks partly to the element of surprise. And even then it wasn’t the bell to bell domination it’s remembered as. Since then he’s gone 3-7 and has been finished 5 times. It’s over. I don’t get why he still gets talked about like he’s a big deal. He hasn’t been in years. He’s a shade off being as done as Renan Barao at the end of his UFC run now for me. Barcelos is decent but a bit of a journeyman, when you start losing those fights and you’re a Bantamweight in your mid 30s with a bunch of stoppage losses against you, it’s probably time to start thinking about finding another way to make coin. And hopefully not by mutilating dogs ears like he did in the past the cunt. 

Not a whole lot else to even talk about. That Bellato vs Craig ending though…

Don’t know what the fuck was going on here ? don’t know what to make of it. Seen a lot of opinions, from people whose opinions I respect, saying they think he legit had his shit rocked and this could absolutely happen. Who am I to judge? I’ve never been in there. Gotta say it looked fishy though. The gif above is whatever. It’s this which made the whole thing feel iffy to me…

Looked at the ref on the way down, then flops down as if he’s out cold like Eddie Guerrero used to do when he’d cheat and then play dead. Maybe I’m being harsh. I hate calling this stuff into question but this looked off. I saw Ray Longo defending Bellato and saying he thought Bellato was already rocked from the kick then knocked himself out when the back of his head hit the canvas. I’m not sure but Longo’s forgot more about this stuff than I’ll ever learn. Bellato was doing fine before eating that kick as well so I’m not sure why he’d have faked it. Wasn’t like they were gonna go to the scorecards either because they hadn’t even completed a round at that point. Fuck knows. 

That Malcolm Wellmaker KO was probably the highlight of the card for me. Jesus Christ…

OK, it was only against Kris Moutinho. Maybe one of the worst fighters on the UFC roster in years. But still. That’s two crushing knockouts in a row for Wellmaker, and at Bantamweight which isn’t typically a division where you see a lot of one punch knockouts. Granted it’s all low level so far. I’m not expecting him to keep folding fuckers as he moves up through the levels. But so far, he’s definitely earned a rep as someone you should probably keep an eye on. Feel like he should change his surname though. Wellmaker feels like false advertising because this sod isn’t making any opponents feel well. I like him. I read after his UFC debut that, with the POTN bonus last time, he was able to give up his job and focus 100% on training MMA full time. At 31 I wouldn’t usually expect him to make big strides but now he doesn’t have to juggle MMA with a day job, who knows? Maybe there’s strides to be made.

Thought Jose Ochoa looked quality bashing up Cody Durden as well. Think I said when he debuted against Lone’er Kavanagh that I thought he could do well. Coming up against Kavanagh in both their debuts wasn’t ideal but he showed enough in that fight that I was looking forward to seeing him again here and he didn’t disappoint. Still only 24 as well. 


That’s about it. Shite like Chiesa vs McGee, Menifield vs Sy, Malik vs Brundage had me yawning and fast forwarding because life’s too short. Proper mixed bag. The Usman win lifted it a bit for me and ended things on a positive but overall definitely leaning more towards a thumbs down for this one. 

[Egg Shen]

They aint giving Kris Moutinho any easy touches are they? Poor fucker.