Joaquin Buckley added to his already insane highlight reel at UFC Vegas 37, finishing Antonio Arroyo in round three.
Kicking off the UFC Vegas 37 main card was last year’s Knockout of the Year winner, Joaquin Buckley, taking on Antonio Arroyo in a clash of hard-hitting middleweights.
Buckley’s two-touch spinning kick KO of Impa Kansanganay (coincidentally also on the UFC Vegas 37 card on Saturday) will go down as one of the greatest MMA highlights of all time. But on Saturday night in Las Vegas, “New Mansa” was looking to bounce back from his own highlight reel loss, which came as Alessio Di Chirico knocked him senseless with a head kick.
As for Arroyo, the Brazilian was looking to snap a two-fight skid.
Buckley started off quick, looking to chop down the taller Arroyo with leg kicks. Arroyo seemed to have trouble closing the distance early because anytime he went forward he took a hard kick. Unfortunately one of those kicks went a bit sideways and actually hit Arroyo in the groin so we got a brief stoppage in the action. Coming out of the break, Arroyo landed a big head kick on Buckley, but unlike Buckley’s last outing, Buckley ate the shot. Arroyo followed that up with a clean leg kick of his own, heading into round two it seemed both fighters were content to only throw kicks.
Round two was a similar case as round one. The only difference being that Arroyo did begin finding a home for the jab as well as kicks to the body of Buckley, Buckley continued looking for leg kicks and head kicks, but not much landed clean. The biggest exchange of the round was Arroyo landing a huge flying knee that landed clean, but Buckley ate it well and actually nearly got the takedown off of the knee. Buckley was the much more active fighter in round two as well.
Heading into round three Arroyo put on the pressure and actually checked a leg kick that hurt Buckley. Buckley shot for a takedown but couldn’t get it, and Arroyo ended up getting the back, but Buckley fought his way out of it and back to his feet. However it wasn’t much later that Arroyo would throw another knee, this time Buckley would block it, and come overhand with a right hand and a left uppercut that would put Arroyo down. A couple of follow-up shots later and that was it.
Joaquin Buckley is far from a complete fighter, but man he’s got insane power and he added to his highlight reel with this one.
Official Result: Joaquin Buckley def. Antonio Arroyo via TKO, 2:26 of Round Three.
