Stephen Thompson Prepared for ‘Three-Round War’ vs. Joaquin Buckley at UFC 307

Stephen
Thompson promises to put on a show against Joaquin
Buckley at UFC
307.

The fan-friendly strikers will meet in a welterweight clash in the
featured preliminary matchup at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City,
Utah, on Saturday night. Meanwhile, the main card action will be
kicked off by a middleweight matchup between Roman
Dolidze and Kevin
Holland, whom “Wonderboy” defeated via corner stoppage in
2022.

On one hand, Thompson is glad to have the featured preliminary
spot, as it means a lot less hassle behind the scenes. However,
Thompson thinks his matchup against Buckley, a potential “Fight of
the Night,” deserved to be on the main card. That being said,
Thompson acknowledges that he has only dropped a submission loss
against Shavkat
Rakhmonov in December 2023 since his victory over Holland.
Meanwhile, “Trailblazer” has since gone 3-2, most recently breaking
Michal
Oleksiejczuk’s arm to earn a first-round stoppage at UFC 302
this past June. All things considered, Thompson is more excited to
return to action than anything else.

“When you’re on the main card, there’s a lot of wait. You have to
wait for the entry, there’s more commercials on pay-per-view. So to
be the main event on the prelims, it’s cool to be able to go out
there and get it over with,” Thompson told Submission Radio. “But at the same time, I think this
fight deserves to be on the main card. I think me and Joaquin
Buckley and go out there and really put on a show, possibly ‘Fight
of the Night.’ But you also gotta look at – I haven’t fought since
December [2023], so it’s been a while. Holland’s been out there,
putting in work. So are these other guys, you have Jose Aldo
that’s going to be on the main card as well. But it’s been a while
man and I’m kind of looking forward to it to be honest with
you.”

Thompson believes his matchup against Buckley will go the distance,
at the end of which he will have his hand raised. And the
welterweight veteran vows to show over the course of 15 minutes
that the booking deserved a main card slot.

“I don’t visualize any knockouts. I visualize my hand being raised
at the end of the fight,” Thompson said. “I’m prepared for a three,
five-minute round war. I feel like this could have been a main
event actually, kind of like me and Kevin Holland. It would have
been a great one for a Fight Night or something. But here we are
man, [UFC] 307, main event on the prelim card. We’re gonna go out
there and show everybody what’s up. That we deserve to be on that
pay-per-view card.”