Joaquin Buckley dominates and snaps Nursulton Ruziboev’s 10-fight finish streak at UFC St Louis

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, May 11, 2024, for UFC St Louis, going down live from the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Headlining the event is a heavyweight bout between the UFC’s all-time knockout leader, no. 12 ranked Derrick Lewis (27-12) and the surging no. 15 ranked Rodrigo Nascimento (11-1).

Co-headlining the event is a welterweight showcase between no. 11 ranked Joaquin Buckley (19-6) and Nursulton Ruziboev (34-9-2).

Buckley, following 5-4 run up at 185 lbs, had since dropped down to 170 lbs last May and picked up three-straight wins over Andre Fialho (TKO), Alex Morono (UD), and Vicente Luque (TKO).

Ruziboev on the other hand had won 10-straight coming in, all 10 wins via finish including claims of the WFCA welterweight and OFC middleweight championships, and also a 2-0 run in the UFC with wins over Brunno Ferreira (KO) and Sedriques Dumas (TKO).

Continue reading to see how this welterweight encounter went down:

Official Result: Joaquin Buckley def. Nursulton Ruziboev via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 29-27)

Buckley caught a heavy knee to the body and secured a takedown off it about 90 seconds in, Ruziboev of which did a good job of tying his arms up and not allowing him to unload on strikes from top. Ruziboev got back to his feet eventually and let go on a combination that backed Buckley up, storming right into another double leg that saw him again get put on his back.

Ruziboev once again got back to his feet before they headed into a second round.

Buckley continued to dominate the fight with his wrestling through much of round two, and when they were standing Ruziboev didn’t let go on much offense.

Buckley landed a vicious two-punch combination in the third and soon after followed it up with a left hook that dropped Ruziboev, absolutely battering him from top position from there. Honestly it could have been stopped. Buckley went for a triangle choke and gave up top position, though Ruziboev was unable to do anything from top and was reversed back to bottom position.

Joaquin Buckley as a welterweight is a problem, he’s now 4-0 in the division with this dominant win at UFC St Louis.

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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