Remember when 30-year-old Dominick Reyes stepped up to the consensus greatest of all time and gave the then-light heavyweight champion Jon Jones a run good run for his money? Besides Vitor Belfort and Alexander Gustafsson, ‘The Devastator’ is the only name who took ‘Bones’ to the limit. Some believe that the 35-year-old excelled in the standup game during that fight, as he even got the now heavyweight champion rocked during the early rounds. However, the judges scored in favor of Jones, but it came as a surprise when the champ was handed a unanimous decision victory.
Despite the outcome, the community praised Reyes’s performance, and in a recent interview, the former title contender revealed to have gone to “crazy” lengths to make sure he gets the job done. Those lengths included digging into Jon Jones’s whole life story.
“Honestly, I was like, ‘I could beat this guy. I’m mentally stronger than him, physically stronger than him. He’s an amazing fighter, scary-looking guy, but I’m better,’” Dominick Reyes revealed on the GYPSY TALES PODCAST. “I was kind of crazy in my analysis of that opponent. So, I looked at everything. I looked at his childhood, I looked at his high school sports, I looked at his Kuco. I looked at his wife, I looked at his kids.”
He further added, “I looked at everything and who he was and how he lived his life… and I followed him all the way until the fight – everything he said, everything he did, everything anybody said about him [and] anything that any of his family said, I listened,” Reyes added. “I dialed in exactly who he was and exactly, exactly, I beat him. I obsessed about it for a year and a half.”
March 4, 2023, Las Vegas, NV, LAS VEGAS, NV, USA: LAS VEGAS, NV – MARCH 4: Jon Jones prepares to fight Ciryl Gane in their Heavyweight fight during the UFC 285 event at T-Mobile Arena on March 4, 2023 in Las Vegas, NV, USA. Las Vegas, NV USA – ZUMAp175 20230304_zsa_p175_246 Copyright: xLouisxGrassex
Well, this method may look a bit extreme, but Jon Jones is no easy bloke to deal with. The man stuck fear into his opponents’ hearts and by 2020, that was a well-established fact. Hence, Dominick Reyes needed every advantage to make sure he had Jones’s number in every aspect of the game because fighting is 50% physical and 50% mental.
Dominick Reyes may not have won the fight, but he did make Jon Jones question himself during the clash. A few years after that UFC 247 main event, the now heavyweight champion revealed that he was on the verge of almost giving up against Reyes. Let’s take a closer look.
Jon Jones claimed he thought Dominick Reyes was a worthy adversary
Jon Jones hasn’t downplayed the kind of performance Dominick Reyes put on during the one-and-only encounter. He was a real challenge, according to the 28-1 legend. While being on the receiving end of some brutal strikes from the challenger, Jones’ attention shifted to the Octagon door as he started reminiscing about his career. He thought he might lose the fight against Reyes, but planned to go all rounds and avoid embarrassment.
“I got in the fight with him and he was giving me a true f—ing run for my money. I remember thinking to myself, ‘F—k. You may have met your match, Jon.’ That’s what like a voice said to me right in the middle of the cage. It was like, ‘You may have met your match,’” Jon Jones stated on the Overdogs Podcast. “As clear as day, I saw a door in the Octagon and it was just like, ‘Hey. You’ve had a great career… This kid, he wants it, he’s hungry for it, Jon. It’s okay if you come up short in this one. Just don’t let him knock you out.”
Well, Jon Jones kept his winning streak alive at the end of the ordeal and has been in the same position since then, but for Dominick Reyes, things took a dive for the worst. He went on to rack up four losses in a row until 2024 when he returned to secure two consecutive wins. Can he win the title this time? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.
The post “I Followed Him” – UFC Rival Comes Clean on Being ‘Obsessed’ With Jon Jones Before Almost Beating Him appeared first on EssentiallySports.
