Former UFC light heavyweight championship challenger, Dominick Reyes has claimed that he “fully” knocked out surging Czech Republic striker, Jiri Prochazka with an upkick during their UFC Vegas 25 headliner back in May.
Reyes, who recently announced his full-time move to Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Nevada — suffered his third consecutive defeat back in May, finding himself on the receiving end of a potential Knockout of the Year contender, courtesy of a spinning back elbow at the hands of Prochazka.
The Hesperia native had challenged former two-time UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones back in February of last year for gold in the main event of UFC 247 — pushing the former gold holder to his limit over the course of five rounds, in a highly-debated and contentious unanimous decision loss to the Rochester native.
In September of that year, Reyes was booked to meet with Jan Blachowicz for the vacant light heavyweight at UFC 253 on ‘Fight Island’ — eventually succumbing to late second round strikes.
Suffering a multitude of facial fractures via the spinning elbow knockout at the hands of Prochazka back in May, Reyes has recently claimed that he actually completely knocked the former Rizin FF light heavyweight titleholder with an upkick, but could not capitalize due to the way the Czech native fell into his guard.
“Yeah, I upkicked him (Jiri Prochazka) really hard, and he went out fully,” Dominick Reyes told reporter, James Lynch. “And I knew he was out, but I couldn’t move properly because of the way he fell on me. It made it so I couldn’t advance or take advantage of it. But, hey, man, the guy’s a f*cking beast. He did his thing. For me to fight guys like Jiri is everything, man.“
“I’m trying to fight the best guys in the world and guys that are good human beings, that are down with the cause,” Dominick Reyes continued. “‘Cause he’s a samurai, man. He’s got the warrior spirit all the way around. And I got nothing but respect for the guy.“
The week following his victory over Reyes, Prochazka told former UFC middleweight champion, Michael Bisping and comedian, Luis J. Gomez, that he was, in fact, knocked out by the Hesperia native as a result of the upkick.
“The second situation that was the kick from the background to my head,” Prochazka said. “That was a knockout. That was a knockout. And nobody knows that. For one or two seconds I was out, out, I was out. Where is his (Dominick Reyes) to lean on him? Just to take some — one, two, three seconds to take a breath. Okay, where I am? Here? What now?