Jon Jones hasn’t fought since Feb. 2020 in what many consider his most controversial fight to date.
Tasked with a then-surging undefeated Dominick Reyes (12-0), Jones skated by in a closely contested unanimous decision in front of the Houston, Texas crowd that night at UFC 247 (watch highlights). Shortly afterward, “Bones” announced he was vacating the UFC Light Heavyweight title to make a long-awaited jump to the Heavyweight division. While this has yet to come to fruition, Reyes revealed today (Mon., June 13, 2022) that the promotional had plans to run things back between the competitive pairing.
“The whole thing was we are going to run it back,” Reyes said on The MMA Hour (h/t BJPenn.com). “Then the pandemic started and I don’t know what he started doing at home and started feeling a different kind of way. All of the sudden it was, ‘No, 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 without double, you have to pay me double to fight that guy again.’ It was like, what, I was getting contender money, bro, screw you, I should be getting pay-per-views the next fight. It was weird how it all happened, he was down, everything was good, Dana [White] said we were gonna do it then nope.
“That is the reason why [he moved up to heavyweight],” he concluded. “I don’t take any solace in it, I mean if we would’ve rematched I would’ve had closure in the situation, it is what it is.”
Unfortunately for Reyes, he’s still seeking a positive result following the Jones bout, having suffered back-to-back tough knockout losses to former and now-current champions, Jan Blachowicz and Jiri Prochazka.