UFC veteran Joaquin Buckley isn’t one to mince words, and he certainly didn’t hold back when giving advice to Sedriques “SD” Dumas after Dumas’s 13th arrest since 2014. With Dumas’s UFC future hanging by a thread, Buckley made it clear that fighting skills alone won’t save a career if life outside the cage is a mess.
‘Get Your Life in Order’: Joaquin Buckley’s Blunt Message After SD Dumas’s Latest Arrest
“When you working towards something like being a world champion, don’t think it’s just training and fighting. You got to have your life in order, you got to have your life in balance, bro,” Joaquin Buckley said in an interview with Parry Punch, sounding less like a cornerman and more like a life coach with a vested interest in seeing fewer mugshots and more hand raises.
The top-ranked welterweight Joaquin Buckley didn’t sugarcoat the situation. “SD got to think about some things that he got to change within himself, right, and within his life. Because yet again, bro, you on the biggest platform on the planet. Don’t waste it, right? Cuz they already looking for an excuse to let you go… You got to be smart, man, and you got to move strategically.” In other words: the UFC is not in the business of second (or thirteenth) chances.
The US-born Joaquin Buckley also warned against the dangers of nostalgia for old habits. “You can’t be living in the past doing the same old [stuff] thinking it’s going to like, ‘Oh, well, I still made it, still doing this [stuff].’ You can’t live like that, man.”
For Dumas, Buckley’s message was clear: the past is a nice place to visit, but you can’t live there, especially if it keeps landing you in trouble. Buckley stressed the need to change one’s surroundings. “You just got to change your environment and change the people that you hanging out with. If those are the people that expose you to that [stuff], get away from [them], period. That’s it. Find new people and new mentalities, new perspectives. That’s what I had to do.” He wasn’t just talking theory; he was speaking from experience.
“I had to change the people that I hung out around and had to see that, okay, I’m trying to make it here, who can I reach out to, who can I use as an example or as a model, right? Cuz you need a mentor, right? Yeah, I’m a grown man but I still need a mentor in life. A lot of these guys don’t have mentors, they got coaches but not mentors to help them figure out how life should be and how to be a man.”
Buckley’s advice to SD Dumas was simple but not easy: get your house in order, ditch the bad influences, and don’t blow the shot you’ve got.
