Dominick Reyes is the man that has come the closest to beating Jon Jones and the title challenger was doing everything to get a rematch. Things have not gone his way since the UFC fighter came close to being the light heavyweight champion.
Looking back on the fight, Dominick Reyes is very confident that he should have walked away with the light heavyweight belt. Jon Jones has not fought in the UFC since that fight back in February 2020.
“Absolutely, I feel the same, I was there and so was everyone else in the arena, and anyone who has any kind of a mind about fighting knows I won that fight,” he said (ht MMA Fighting).
“I don’t think about it often, but I think about it every once in a while,” he continued. “In this situation, for instance, right now, the current champ is a guy I lost to, the former champ is a guy I lost to, the former former champ is a guy I lost to. With the way things are ending up, I think about it.
“It could all be different. It could all be so different right now. I did win that fight with Jon, but if I did get the nod — or however you want to say it — and I’m the champ, who knows? Maybe I don’t fight Jan, maybe I fight someone else. It all could be so different.
“It is what it is. I’ve made my decisions, I’ve done what I’ve done, I’m here now, and luckily, I’m still alive, I still have another chance at it, and I’m excited about it.
“But it was still eating me up in the Jan fight. It’s a real f’d up situation, man. Some would say it was a fork in the road for my life. Everything would’ve changed that night if the judges would’ve done the right thing.”
Jon Jones is actually the reason the UFC was never able to book the rematch between the two. Dominick Reyes was trying to make it happen and multiple things stopped it from happening.
“That was the whole thing, we were going to run it back,” Reyes said. “Then the whole pandemic started, I don’t know what he started doing at home, he started to feel a certain kind of way, and then it was, ‘I’m going to heavyweight, screw that. There’s too much risk, I don’t get paid enough to fight him. I’m not going to fight him again without double. You have to pay me double to fight that guy again.’
“What? I was getting contender money, I should be getting pay-per-view [points] this next fight. It was weird how it happened — he was down, it was going to happen, Dana was like, ‘We’re going to do it,’ then all of a sudden, ‘Nope, I’m going to heavyweight.’ As soon as he said he was going to heavyweight they said, ‘You have to fight Jan for the interim title.’ Cool, let’s do it, I’m going to win, yes, let’s go. I was ready to go, but deep down in my heart I wasn’t. That wasn’t the fight I wanted.”
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