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Dominick Reyes is worried that Jon Jones will poke him in the eyes when they collide in the UFC 247 pay-per-view (PPV) main event this Sat. night (Feb. 8, 2020) inside Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
And “Bones” couldn’t be happier.
“I train very hard, and I don’t train to poke people in the eyes,” the light heavyweight champion told MMA Fighting. “But it’s good when people are thinking on that type of stuff. That’s good for me. If people are thinking, ‘I’m getting poked and (he’s) getting a free point,’ that type of stuff is good for me. I don’t think about that type of stuff.”
Jones has come under fire for eye pokes throughout his career but insists the infractions have been nothing more than coincidence, though he also admitted it was his “favorite technique” as far back as 2016.
“I fight how I fight,” Jones insisted. “I grab for hands a lot, and over the years, I’ve coincidentally landed a few eyepokes. But if you guys think I trained poking people in the eyes, think about how ridiculous that is. We fight with our fingers open, and I can be a very reachy fighter sometimes, and it happens.”
One man’s reachy is another man’s dirty.