Joaquin Buckley and Alessio Di Chirico are fighting at UFC Fight Island 7 on Saturday, January 16, 2021 on ABC.

In this middleweight (185lb) bout, we have Joaquin “New Mansa” Buckley vs. Alessio “Manzo” Di Chirico. Buckley is fighting out of St. Louis, Missouri. Buckley is entering this bout as a -275 favorite. He has a professional MMA record of 12-3-0. His current record in the UFC is 2-1-0. He lost his UFC debut against Kevin Holland via TKO in October 2020. Buckley has 9 wins by KO/TKO (75%), 0 submissions (0%), and 3 decisions (25%). 

Di Chirico is entering this fight as a +215 underdog. He is fighting out of Rome, Italy. His professional MMA record is 12-5-0. His current UFC record is 3-5-0. In Di Chirico’s last bout, he lost against Zak Cummings by decision. He’s currently on a three fight losing streak. He has 5 wins via KO/TKO (42%), 4 submissions (33%), and 3 decisions (25%).  

This is a must win for Di Chirico. Before he signed with the UFC, he had a professional MMA record of 9-0-0. In his UFC debut, he lost to Bojan Velickovic. Di Chirico has notable wins against Julian Marquez and Oluwale Bamgbose, but has struggled when he has faced top-level opponents. Unfortunately for Di Chiricio, he’s fighting one of the top prospects in the UFC. Everyone has seen Buckley’s sensational knockout against Impa Kasanganay. Buckley also had a spectacular performance against Jordan Wright in his last bout. I’m not necessarily on board the Buckley hype train, but he should be able to dominate Di Chirico throughout this entire fight.