Dominick Reyes believes his career trajectory changed after his loss to Jon Jones.
Reyes took Jones to his limit in their light heavyweight title fight back in February 2020.
Many felt Reyes had done more than enough to come out on top going by his work in the first three rounds. However, the judges scored a unanimous decision to Jones in the end.
With Jones vacating the title soon after, Reyes would suffer a knockout defeat to Jan Blachowicz in their light heavyweight title fight. That was followed by a brutal knockout at the hands of current champion Jiri Prochazka last year.
After going into the Jones fight unbeaten, Reyes has now suffered three defeats in a row, with the last two potentially having a lasting effect on his career and overall durability.
And for Reyes, he could only think of what could have been had the judges scored it his way.
“[The Jon Jones fight] was still eating me up going into the Jan [Blachowicz] fight,” Reyes said on The MMA Hour. “It was a real effed up situation. Some could say it was a fork in the road for my life. Everything could’ve changed that night if the judges did the right thing.”
Dominick Reyes: I Was The Reason Jon Jones Moved Up
To make matters worse, Reyes never got the closure he desired in a planned rematch with Jones.
Instead, Jones vacated his title to prepare for a move up to heavyweight which still hasn’t come to fruition as of yet.
“The whole thing was we are going to run it back,” Reyes explained (via BJ Penn). “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 happen, he was down, everything was good, Dana said we were gonna do it, then nope.”
In the end, Reyes believes he was the reason Jones decided to move up.
“That is the reason why (he moved up to heavyweight),” he added. “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.”
You can watch the interview below:
