UFC middleweight Joaquin Buckley turned more than a few heads with his choice of cornerman at UFC Vegas 48. Standing among Buckley’s usual fight team was viral internet star Commander Dale Brown of Detroit Urban Survival Training, whose demonstration videos have earned the ire and mockery of many in the MMA community. The buzz around Brown’s inclusion in Buckley’s corner, he says, was not only part of the plan, but as he told The MMA Hour, surprisingly legitimate.
“We just started brainstorming, what if I put this man in my corner? What type of impact would that make? After that, history was made on Feb. 19.
Joaquin Buckley’s Plan to “blow up the internet” With “Legit” Commander Dale Brown
When everything started blowing up the way that it did, I reached out to him and was like, ‘Hey, would you be cool being in my corner?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I think we’ll pretty much blow up the internet,’ which we did. It went crazy. He was down from the get go. Shout out to Dale Brown.
He’s a cool dude, he gets a lot of negativity about the things that he’s doing but he’s legit in the self defense and security game [for] like 26 years. He was a military paratrooper, he knows what he’s talking about. He’s been in the game for a minute.”
Although Dale Brown had little by way of in-Octagon advice, Joaquin Buckley insists that the Detroit-based “survival instructor” offered some mentality coaching prior to the fight. “It was really just to get attention for the fight, but he did give me some good advice.
It was more mental, telling me I had more commitment than the fighter that is fighting me, that I put it more work, and that what he was trying to take away from [me] is [my] life.
‘He doesn’t want to just take this win, he wants to take your life away from you. The way that you’re trying to build your future, he’s trying to remove that and re-write history. Forget all that. We worked too hard for all of that.’”
Buckley bounced back from a knockout loss in January 2021 to amass two consecutive wins, so perhaps Dale Brown is more helpful than he appears. Buckley will hope to continue his winning ways, and with the added promotional push of Dale Brown’s inclusion in his corner, perhaps this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the Detroit Urban Survival Training founder.
Do you think Commander Dale Brown is legit? Let us know in the comments.
