Dominick Reyes has been driving for a rematch with Jon Jones. But, it’s clear that the light-heavyweight champ isn’t the only person Reyes is keen to fight.
In fact, Reyes believes the 205 pound bracket’s going to be one of the UFC’s top divisions for years to come.
Reyes “freakin'” loves where UFC’s light-heavyweight division is at
It wasn’t that long ago when people were talking about Jones cleaning out the light-heavyweight division and moving up to heavyweight. While there’s still speculation about Jones fighting at heavyweight, the narrative of the division being cleaned out has taken some hits in recent months.
Last summer, Jones squeaked by Thiago Santos with a split decision win, and this past February, many people argued Reyes in fact defeated “Bones” (Jones won via decision). Further, Jan Blachowicz is knocking on the title shot door after knocking out Corey Anderson.
Well, recently Reyes spoke with MMA Fighting, and while talking about the state of the division, he said this.
“I freakin’ love it,” Reyes said. “When I first got in the UFC, I was just always talking about trying to revive the division, being the new face of 205. We’ve got guys coming up, but I’m just the leader of the class. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
The division is gonna be exciting as long as I’m in the division. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. There’s a lot of great matchups out there for me.
The list is so long now, it’s so exciting. I’ll just throw out a couple of names of guys that I respect in the division that I think I’ll fight in the future.
“So we’ve got Aleksander Rakic, we’ve got [Ion] Cutelaba, we’ve got [Jiri Prochazka], but we’ve got to see how how he fights. Corey Anderson, Johnny Walker, Jan, Thiago, this is gonna be great. This is gonna be a fun next seven or eight years.”
Yup. Hard to argue with Reyes here. Although, some might debate him on whether he’s the “leader of the class.” Aside from challengers for Jones, the title shot runs featuring all of these fighters will be fun to watch.
Reyes praises Blachowicz
Currently it remains to be seen whether the UFC will go with Reyes for Jones’ next opponent, or Blachowicz (Jones has been pushing for a bout with the latter).
While talking about Blachowicz, Reyes said this.
“I think he’s a fantastic fighter,” Reyes said. “I think he’s one of the most technical guys in the division. I think he has some really good power.
I think he’s just a technical beast and he has a lot of experience to where he’s wise with his technical ability. I’ve been wanting to fight Jan since I beat Jared Cannonier.
“I don’t know if you guys know or remember, I called him out right after the fight. This is a guy I’ve been wanting to fight for a minute, so if there’s an interim then yeah, hell yeah, let’s do it. But I think we’re gonna get that rematch first.”
We shall see. It will be interesting to see which way the UFC goes here.
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