Joaquin Buckley feels that Ariel Helwani and the MMA media industry, in general, are not properly serving MMA fighters.
Buckley secured the biggest win of his career against Vicente Luque at UFC Atlantic City, following which he slammed potential rivals like Kevin Holland, as well as journalists, particularly Helwani.
During a recent interview with Michael Bisping, Buckley disclosed that his recent appearance on Helwani’s ‘The MMA Hour’ didn’t unfold as he had hoped.
“So I was just doing Ariel Helwani’s show and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of Ariel because when he be having fighters on, he be like, setting them up with questions that could potentially hurt a mother******’s career if you say the wrong thing,” Buckley said. “At the end of the day, this is a business and Ariel, yeah he’s great at what he does for his job, right, but for me, I feel like he been enticing certain things within the industry that could hurt certain fighters.
“I shouldn’t have even took the interview, I ain’t even gonna stunt because it had me feeling some way and it had me out of character on his show, but I feel like most of the media, when they do not promote us in the light that we should, I really feel like they diminish who we are as a character, as human beings.”
Accusations have long been leveled against Helwani for instigating controversies between MMA fighters, and his absence from UFC events stems from disagreements and past disputes with UFC CEO Dana White.
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