Joaquin Buckley hits back at Andrei Arlovski over "he's dead" remark about Anthony Johnson

Arlovski said he was the winner anyway of the 2013 fight Johnson won by decision, adding: "He's dead. I'm alive." Buckley said Johnson inspired him and called the remark "the lack of respect".

Joaquin Buckley has hit back at Andrei Arlovski over his remark about the late Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, the fighter Buckley says inspired him to become a knockout artist.

Johnson beat Arlovski by unanimous decision at World Series of Fighting 2 in March 2013, and died in November 2022. Speaking to David Guttman, Arlovski said he believes he won the fight. "Unfortunately, the judges gave him the victory. I'm the winner anyway. He's dead. I'm alive," he said, as quoted by Fightful.

Buckley answered in a video on social media. "Anthony Rumble Johnson, baby. I'm talking about that's the man right there that inspired me to be the knockout artist that I am," he said. "But Anthony Rumble Johnson didn't get the love that was deserved."

"And now you have this individual that's speaking, you know, ill about him, and the man gone, dead and gone, right?" Buckley said. He said he did not know whether it was "just a bad, you know, idea to make a joke", and that it showed "how they really feel about us".

He called it "the lack of respect that they have for us to even consider to even come out and say something like that", and summed up Arlovski's words as: "That he may have won the fight, right, but I won because he's dead and I'm here."

"Now y'all tell me what that is because I ain't got no words for it," Buckley said.

Buckley, who was knocked out by Mike Malott in the UFC Edmonton main event, has said his next fight will be his last.

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