Dominick Reyes still believes Jon Jones is ducking him.
Reyes last competed in February when he took Jones to his limit in their light heavyweight title fight at UFC 247. Many felt Reyes did enough to win on the night; however, the judges saw it differently with “Bones” getting the unanimous verdict.
There were discussions for a rematch to be booked later this year according to Reyes only for the COVID-19 pandemic to put a halt to those plans. Jones, meanwhile, has talked of facing Jan Blachowicz instead while most recently, he was campaigning to move up and face Francis Ngannou in a heavyweight super fight.
Negotiations notably failed with Jones currently having a spat with UFC president Dana White over his pay. The light heavyweight champion went on to claim he was vacating his title and announced that Reyes should fight Blachowicz for the vacant strap going forward. He also told the UFC to call him when they were ready to compensate him properly.
Reyes: Jones Doing Whatever He Can To Avoid Fighting Me Again
For Reyes — who already believed the champion was avoiding him before talk of Ngannou came up — it’s even more obvious that Jones doesn’t want to run things back following recent events.
“It was obvious man, that last fight was a dog fight and I took it to him,” Reyes said in a recent interview with Chael Sonnen (via MMA Junkie). “I pushed him to his limits. I pushed him somewhere he’s never been. He’s never been outstruck, he’s never been hurt like that, he’s never had an opponent that wasn’t afraid of him at all.
“… He’s not willing to lose his belt for less than whatever million dollars. He knows that belt is close to being lost, so he’s doing whatever he can to avoid fighting me again.”
Reyes went on to speculate what Jones’ thinking was in moving up to heavyweight and facing someone like Ngannou.
“He’ll go to heavyweight, ‘I’ll take my first loss at heavyweight, are you guys happy now? You saw me get knocked out by Ngannou,’ I think that’s kinda what he’s thinking,” Reyes added. “Do everything he can to avoid that to keep his legacy, to keep his belt. Possibly go up to heavyweight and maybe beat Francis and now OK now I can make a run at the heavyweight title.”
Jones, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to fear Reyes, at least going by a recent tweet.
What do you make of Reyes’ comments?