Weidman picking Reyes over Jones

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Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman thinks Dominick Reyes will knock out Jon Jones.

Dominick Reyes may be an underdog in tonight’s bout with UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, according to the Las Vegas bookmakers, but that doesn’t mean nobody is predicting the undefeated challenger to get the win.

In fact, former UFC middleweight Chris Weidman announced that he not only thinks Reyes will beat Jones, often considered one of the greatest fighters of all time, but that he’ll do it by knockout, too.

Weidman’s bold prediction caught some immediate flack on twitter. But the New Yorker had a response for anyone who thought his pick was ‘Delusional’.

“Delusional? Can I not have a opinion? Do you think Jones is unbeatable?” wrote Weidman before reminding the world he once knocked out an MMA icon who was once considered ‘unbeatable’ in Anderson Silva. “Anderson was the GOAT at one point too. He got KOed. Not far fetched.”

Weidman’s shocking victory over Anderson Silva came at UFC 162 back in 2013. His KO win, which won him the middleweight belt, snapped a period of dominance for ‘The Spider’ that had stretched over seven years and included ten UFC title defenses. Weidman then beat Silva in the rematch after the Brazilian suffered a ghastly leg injury.

Weidman defended the middleweight title against Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort before falling to Luke Rockhold in 2015. Since then Weidman has found success in the Octagon hard to come by. He’s gone 1-4 since 2016 with high profile KO/TKO losses to Yoel Romero, Gegard Mousasi, Jacare Souza and tonight’s challenger Dominick Reyes.

Jon Jones comes into tonight’s UFC 247 headliner with just one DQ loss and a No Contest as blemishes on his 27-fight record. Like Anderson Silva, ‘Bones’ has 10 successful UFC title defenses to his name.