There’s a new man in town at 170-pounds.

Joaquin Buckley scored a career-best win in Tampa, Florida this past weekend against the former three-time world title challenger Colby Covington — but it didn’t exactly come about as he had envisioned.

Early in the fight, Buckley connected with a glancing blow on Covington’s right brow as he pushed forward for a takedown, opening up a cut on the American wrestler’s eyelid that gradually got worse as the second and third rounds progressed. Before the start of the third, in-cage official Dan Miragliotti warned Covington that the fight was in danger of being stopped by a ringside physician who — several minutes later — would ultimately conclude that the gash was too dangerous and that Covington was at risk of losing his eyelid.

The fight was ruled as a TKO win for Buckley — a justifiable result given he had dominated the vast majority of the contest to that point. But as he told The Mac Life in his (very brief) post-fight press conference, the performance shows he is worthy of a title shot even if he didn’t get the type of conclusive knockout statement he had wished for.

“My first main event was a big success, I feel like. The whole card was very successful, you know what I mean? [It had] a lot of knockouts,” Buckley said.

“I feel like my fight shouldn’t have been stopped but it is what it is, you’ve got to protect the fighters. 2025 is definitely my year and we are definitely taking over.

“With this being said, this is a six-fight winning streak. I’ve got eight knockouts within the UFC. I feel like I hadn’t really done enough to put myself in the position to fight for that title.

“Even though I know that Shavkat [Rakhmonov] is next, blessed to that fight, but if anything happens where Shavkat or Belal [Muhammad] doesn’t step up into the Octagon I’m willing to face them.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to keep this nice and short bro. I’m definitely looking to take that throne in 2025.”