Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
The trash talk between Jon Jones and Dominick Reyes is heating up ahead of their headlining light heavyweight title bout at UFC 247 this weekend.
Jones didn’t take too kindly to Reyes’ comments about him never having fought a true athlete during his UFC title reign, firing back at ‘The Devastator’ by calling him a can crusher.
Beating up on cans has got him convinced he’s a better athlete than most of the world. If he was so badass he would’ve won the California state wrestling championships, he would’ve went division one, He would have at least made a practice squad for the NFL. This man is delusional
— Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) February 3, 2020
Reyes has now jabbed back at ‘Bones’ by scrutinizing his career and calling the reining UFC light heavyweight champ a bad person.
“This guy, he’s in love with me man,” Reyes said in a recent interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani (h/t BJPenn.com). “He studied every aspect of my entire life and he thinks he knows me. That’s why I laugh because he honestly thinks he knows me as a man and as a human being. He has no idea, it’s pretty amusing. But to say I’ve beat up cans, you know that’s just disrespectful to the sport in general and the guys he’s fought. I thought him and Weidman were friends, so that’s really messed up. You’re gonna go out here and disrespect everybody in the division. That’s cool man, that’s gonna make you real likeable. That’s why he’s not ever gonna be on the Michael Jordan, Muhammed Ali level. No matter how many wins he gets, no matter how many titles he wins he just can’t get out of his own way. He’s just not a good person.”
“I kinda laughed,” Reyes said. “This guy man, he doesn’t stop. He’s bipolar or something. He tweeted something about being confident in yourself or something like that and I was like, ‘hey man, I believe in myself. What do you want me to do? There’s no pleasing you.’ Honestly man, I don’t know. I think he’s trying to make something in his head or something. I don’t know what he’s doing man, I don’t really give a sh*t. It doesn’t change anything. He can say what he wants. He can try to belittle me, he can try to come at my athletic background and things like this but it doesn’t matter.”
Expect both men to jaw back-and-forth for the remainder of fight week, which concludes Saturday.
UFC 247, which will feature Jones vs. Reyes as the main event, takes place on Feb. 8 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.