Dominick Reyes gave Jon Jones one of the toughest fights of his career in their 205lb title fight back in February of 2020, and after earning a big KO victory over Dustin Jacoby this past weekend he’s now rekindled their old rivalry.
“Forever, he’ll also be known that he lost to me,” Reyes said of Jones on The MMA Hour show. “Maybe we can figure that out one day. It’s not a belief, it’s a fact [that I beat him]. That’s the difference.”
Back in 2020 fans were eager to see an immediate rematch between the two due to the close nature of the fight, but it didn’t materialize and instead Reyes form dipped, suffering three losses in a row, including being TKO’d by Jan Blachowicz, KO’d by Jiri Prochazka and then also KO’d by Ryan Spann.
And of course Jones was eager to reference that fact in his response to Reyes.
“What a claim to fame, almost beat John Jones,” Jones wrote on X. “Got full of myself and literally couldn’t win another fight. “
Jones wasn’t finished there though as he went on to critique what Reyes did wrong in their fight.
“[Dominick], when you look back at our fight, I don’t want you to ever question me or those judges,” Jones said. “Look at your own heart, your own endurance, you didn’t do enough. The sooner you accept that, the better athlete you’ll become.”
Jones also acknowledged the fact that he hadn’t fought well that night, but still drew positives from having to fight through adversity.
“It was a great learning experience. At the end of the day, the heart pulled through when my rhythm was off. The moves definitely weren’t flowing that night. Heart was still there.”
“At the end of the day, Dominic trained for years to defeat me,” Jones concluded. “He mentioned that I was always his target from day one. He had the chance. The fight ended with that man trying to survive.”
