With Jon Jones having vacated his light-heavyweight title earlier this week, a fight between Dominick Reyes and Jan Blachowicz has now been lined up to establish a new champion at UFC 253 on September 26th.
Despite losing to Jon Jones by unanimous decision back in February, Reyes gave such a good account of himself in that title encounter that he remains the current No.1 contender in the division heading into this fight.
Until the fight with ‘Bones’, Reyes had been undefeated in his 12-fight career and had been on a six-fight winning streak inside the Octagon that had seen him collect big wins over the likes of Chris Weidman, Volkan Oezdemir, Ovince Saint Preux and Jared Cannonier.
Meanwhile, Blachowicz made his way to No.3 on the 205lb rankings with an impressive run of form that saw him win seven of his last eight fights in the UFC.
That includes his current three-fight winning streak in which he KO’d former middleweight champion Luke Rockhold, earned a split decision victory over Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza and then most recently KO’d Corey Anderson in the first round in February to put himself firmly in the title picture.
Reyes vs. Blachowicz’s fight for the vacant belt will join a UFC 253 line-up that’s expected to be headlined by what Dana White has predicted will be 2020’s ‘Fight Of The year’, a middleweight title fight between Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa.
