The vacant light heavyweight title will be on the line when Dominick Reyes takes on Jan Blachowicz at UFC 253.
On Monday, ESPN broke the news that Dominick Reyes would be fighting Jan Blachowicz at UFC 253. At the time, it wasn’t known if it was a number one contender bout or perhaps an interim title fight. Yet, shortly thereafter, Jon Jones announced he would be vacating the belt and had his eyes on a move to heavyweight.
Now, with the belt vacant, the promotion announced on social media that Dominick Reyes vs. Jan Blachowicz will be for the vacant light heavyweight title.
It will be the first time in nearly 10 years that someone not named Jon Jones or Daniel Cormier will hold UFC light heavyweight gold after Sept. 26.
Dominick Reyes is coming off a very controversial decision loss to Jon Jones at UFC 247. It was his first professional loss which many pundits believe he won. Before that, he had a knockout win over Chris Weidman and a controversial split-decision win over Volkan Oezdemir.
Jan Blachowicz, meanwhile, is on a three-fight winning streak. Last time out, he scored a knockout win over Corey Anderson to become a top contender at 205-pounds. During this run, he also has a split-decision win over Jacare Souza and a knockout win over Luke Rockhold.
UFC 253 is set to be headlined by a middleweight title bout between Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa.
