Joaquin
Buckley would have preferred a five-round matchup against
Sean
Brady.
Buckley is scheduled to take on Brady at
UFC 328 on May 9 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Brady and Buckley were originally scheduled to headline UFC Fight
Night 274 on April 25 at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas. A main event
booking between Buckley and Brady would have been a five-round bout
as opposed to their UFC 328 booking, which is a three-rounder.
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Buckley recently revealed that he would have preferred headlining a
Fight Night in a five-rounder. Buckley initially thought that he
wanted to dispatch Brady in the opening round. However, having been
out of action for nearly a year, Buckley wants to take his time.
Brady has now embraced the UFC 328 booking, as it gives him the
opportunity to prove himself alongside several other stars on the
stacked card.
“I would have rather been a main event,” Buckley told MMA Junkie. “I would rather have gone
five rounds. Especially with me being out for 11 months, I want to
take my time. I thought I want to rush it and Brady out of there in
the first round. But I realized, it’s been a little minute, and I
don’t want to rush it. I want to take my time. But it is what it
is. Now we’ve got a stacked card with several big names. Now I get
the opportunity to showcase, not only how better I am than Brady,
but then also get to outperform everybody else on the card.”
Buckley (21-7) hasn’t fought since a decision loss against Kamaru
Usman in June 2025 that snapped a six-fight winning streak.
Meanwhile, Brady (18-2) is coming off his second professional loss
against Michael
Morales via a first-round knockout at UFC 322 back in
November.