“I don’t have an issue with Kevin Holland,” Buckley said. “I’m here to fight [Stephen Thompson] and get my paycheck. But if Kevin wants any beef or any problems, he’s just going to have to pull up on me. That’s all.”
When it comes to his actual fight on Saturday, Buckley told MMA Fighting prior to UFC 307 that he had no issue with Thompson outside of trying to further his own career by beating the two-time UFC title challenger.
Just after the fight was announced, Buckley joked that he was going to send “Wonderboy” to Karate Combat but that wasn’t a sly way to say he’s attempting to end Thompson’s career.
Instead, Buckley explained that he wants to dominate Thompson so thoroughly when they meet that the 41-year-old veteran won’t have any choice but to acknowledge his days of chasing a UFC title are over.
“It’s not about stopping his career, it’s about giving him a different career path,” Buckley said. “I know that once I beat him and how I beat him and the fashion [I beat him], he’s still in his mind wants to become a UFC champion — once I beat him, he knows that’s over.
“He don’t want to keep fighting trying to prove himself, especially fighting the younger bucks. I think he’s really going to face the fact and face the reality that once I beat him, this dream that I’ve got, I might as well let that go and become a [Karate Combat] champion. Because I think he can do that. I think he can become a champion in Karate Combat.”
