Is Jon Jones trying to stay away from Dominick Reyes?
At UFC 247, the California native came extremely close to being the first man to defeat the reigning light heavyweight champion, with many pegging Reyes as the rightful 205-pound champion.
Dana White has previously stated that he was looking to book Reyes vs. Jones II, though a potential date or location wasn’t revealed. Jones himself stated that he was open to a rematch against Reyes due to the controversial judging in his title fight; however, according to Reyes himself, the champ is nothing but talk as Jones doesn’t seem too interested in fighting the 30-year-old again:
“I know the UFC is on board,” Reyes told MMA Junkie. “I know I’m on board. The issue is Jon right now. He’s going to say he’s down online, obviously on Twitter. When he gets those contracts in front of him, he’s a little different. That’s where we’re at.”
Reyes doesn’t exactly know why Jones is hesitant to get back inside the octagon against him; however, the light heavyweight believes that the New York native isn’t interested in getting into another dog fight with him:
“It was a straight dog fight, brother,” Reyes said. “The last fight was a pure dog fight. I don’t think he wants to do that again. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t think he wants these hands again. He doesn’t want to get in this dog fight with me. That’s where we’re at.”
Reyes is confident that the fight will take place in 2020, but is hoping that the bout will happen sometime in the Fall so he has a proper training camp leading up to the rematch:
“We’ve got to wait for all of this COVID-19 stuff and everything, so they can make decisions,” Reyes said. “They have to figure out what they’re going to do with him. Hopefully, they don’t punish him so I can get that rematch pretty quickly, right on my timeline. If not, I’m the No. 1 guy, so we’ll figure it out.