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Joaquin Buckley met with Daniel Cormier ahead of UFC 307, reveals plans to send ‘Wonderboy’ to Karate Combat

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Joaquin Buckley met with Daniel Cormier ahead of UFC 307, reveals plans to send ‘Wonderboy’ to Karate Combat

Joaquin Buckley is doing his best to keep his full focus on Stephen Thompson at UFC 307, but some old beefs keep pulling him in different directions.

Perhaps the most interesting encounter was finally sitting down and hashing out his differences with UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier after they engaged in a fiery war of words earlier this year. The incident stemmed from Cormier criticizing Buckley’s decision to call out Conor McGregor following a win, which led to an ugly exchange on social media.

Buckley later said he hoped to meet up with Cormier prior to his fight at UFC 307 to settle their differences.

“I just got done talking to D.C.” Buckley revealed during UFC 307 media day. “That was cool. We was in front of the camera, I thought we was just going to be in the room by ourselves for a bit just to be able to talk like men.

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“But it is what it is, we had a good conversation. A good interview. People will be able to see it. That’s what I thought it was going to be, off camera and just man to man, I think that’s the conversation I would rather have, I’d be more comfortable with if anything.”

Buckley also responded to former opponent Kevin Holland, who said on Wednesday that he chose a different location to stay outside of the UFC fighter hotel to avoid a potential run-in between them. Holland scored a TKO win over Buckley when they met back in 2020 but the rivalry apparently never ended afterwards.

For his part, Buckley says he has no issues with Holland and his grand plan didn’t really work anyways — because he’s not even staying at the fighter hotel.

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“I don’t have an issue with Kevin Holland,” Buckley said. “I’m here to fight [Stephen Thompson] and get my paycheck. But if Kevin wants any beef or any problems, he’s just going to have to pull up on me. That’s all.”

When it comes to his actual fight on Saturday, Buckley told MMA Fighting prior to UFC 307 that he had no issue with Thompson outside of trying to further his own career by beating the two-time UFC title challenger.

Just after the fight was announced, Buckley joked that he was going to send “Wonderboy” to Karate Combat but that wasn’t a sly way to say he’s attempting to end Thompson’s career.

Instead, Buckley explained that he wants to dominate Thompson so thoroughly when they meet that the 41-year-old veteran won’t have any choice but to acknowledge his days of chasing a UFC title are over.

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“It’s not about stopping his career, it’s about giving him a different career path,” Buckley said. “I know that once I beat him and how I beat him and the fashion [I beat him], he’s still in his mind wants to become a UFC champion — once I beat him, he knows that’s over.

“He don’t want to keep fighting trying to prove himself, especially fighting the younger bucks. I think he’s really going to face the fact and face the reality that once I beat him, this dream that I’ve got, I might as well let that go and become a [Karate Combat] champion. Because I think he can do that. I think he can become a champion in Karate Combat.”

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Listen: The weekend debrief – drama at the death

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Listen: The weekend debrief – drama at the death



Iona Ballantyne, Jamie Murphy and Mark Atkinson review the Scottish Premiership action.



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How Premier League sides are using set-piece coaches to find edge

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How Premier League sides are using set-piece coaches to find edge


Yet not every club feels the same. Tottenham, under Ange Postecoglou, do not have a specialist set-piece coach and, since the beginning of last season, Spurs have conceded more set piece goals (excluding penalties) than every Premier League team, except for Nottingham Forest.

At Chelsea Mauricio Pochettino didn’t have a set-piece coach, believing he did not need one, before the Blues hired Cueva with a new set-piece department being set up at Stamford Bridge.

That particular issue was one of the reasons for Chelsea replacing Pochettino with Enzo Maresca in the summer.

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There needs to be buy-in for the position to work, and Austin MacPhee was one of the only staff kept on when Unai Emery replaced Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa two years ago.

Given how hands-on Emery is, it is a seal of approval in itself.

MacPhee – who joined Villa from Midtjylland in 2021 – was also Scotland’s set-piece coach but stepped down last month to spend more time with his ill father.

He has been credited with Villa’s improved set-pieces and last season they became the first team in Europe to score 20 goals from set plays.

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Former Northern Ireland boss Ian Baraclough worked with MacPhee for the national side between 2020 and 2021.

He said: “Austin was innovative. I gave him free reign and it was a good relationship. He was very strong in his beliefs on things. Sometimes you may have to pull the reins on it, but the majority of the time you could see things working.

“It’s just whether you’ve got enough time to work on that but I’m not surprised he’s at Aston Villa and doing well. He communicates very well and he’s one of the standouts in the Premier League when it comes to that role.”

Though Baraclough rightly points out set-pieces have not suddenly become important – they have always been worked on, but have become more inventive.

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“Now you have something like the draught excluder,” he said.

“That was something we deployed in Bosnia (in 2020). I hadn’t seen it before and Austin came to me and said ‘what about this? I’ve seen this at Atletico Madrid’.

“We were one of the first British sides to use it and the players were thinking ‘what’s all this about?’ You could see them laughing and giggling. It was Paddy McNair we used on the floor, it’s genius really.”

As teams increasingly focus on the fine margins, former Blackburn and England striker Chris Sutton emphasises how focus on set-pieces is nothing new.

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He said: “The difference in the past was that managers who wanted to work on them, did so themselves.

“I get how the game has evolved since then with the new technology that is available, but it is like these things and ideas did not exist back in the day, when they definitely did.”



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Hobinger scores twice as Liverpool beat Spurs in thriller

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Hobinger scores twice as Liverpool beat Spurs in thriller



Marie Hobinger scores a stoppage-time penalty as Liverpool register their first Women’s Super League win of the season with a thrilling 3-2 win at Tottenham.



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Notts Forest red card made game more difficult – Enzo Maresca

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Notts Forest red card made game more difficult - Enzo Maresca


Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca says the game got “more difficult” after Nottingham Forest’s James Ward-Prowse was sent off during their 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.

MATCH REPORT: Chelsea 1-1 Nottingham Forest

Watch Match of the Day 2 on BBC iPlayer.

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Watch Kilmarnock go from 2-0 down after 86 minutes to win 3-2

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Watch Kilmarnock go from 2-0 down after 86 minutes to win 3-2



Sportscene pundits Michael Stewart and Shelley Kerr assess Kilmarnock’s stunning comeback to beat Dundee 3-2 at Dens Park.



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‘Ludicrous Sylla red changes game for Dundee’

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‘Ludicrous Sylla red changes game for Dundee’



Sportscene pundits Michael Stewart and Shelley Kerr assess the second yellow card shown to Dundee’s Mo Sylla in their 3-2 defeat by Kilmarnock.



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