Jon Jones has issued a response to Dominick Reyes’s warning.
At UFC London, Dominick Reyes faced the biggest threat in his young MMA career when the 29-year old defeated Volkan Oezdemir via unanimous decision. In the post-fight interview, Reyes was asked if he had a name in mind for his next opponent. Reyes responded in the negative but used his mic time in front of the fans filling the O2 Arena to warn the reigning light heavyweight champion, “I’m coming for you, Jon. I’m coming for you.”
Jon Jones would retweet a clip of this Octagon interview and nonchalantly remind Dominick Reyes of how easy he is to find:
“Been waiting in the same spot for like 8 years now, ??♂️” Jones wrote.
Jon Jones first captured the UFC light heavyweight championship only one day shy of being exactly eight years to the day of this response to Dominick Reyes, so the number of years offered by Jones was more precise than perhaps he himself may realize.
There is one glaring problem with Jones’s estimation, however, which is that he has not been the champion uninterruptedly. Jon Jones was stripped of the light heavyweight championship one two separate occasion, first following a hit-and-run car accident in November of 2015, and, more recently, in July of 2017 for testing positive for traces of turinabol after reclaiming the title from Daniel Cormier at UFC 214.
Jon Jones has made it clear time and time again, though, that he lives by the Ric Flair creed: to be the man, you gotta beat the man. And by that standard, Jones feels he has been the man in the light heavyweight division since 2011. And in a recent interview, Dominick Reyes expressed how much it would mean for him to be the man to beat the man:
“Who doesn’t want to be the guy to take out Jon Jones?” Reyes told ESPN. “I’m a clean athlete. I’ve been fighting clean my whole life. I’ve been drug-tested since college all the time.
“When I get there, it’s not going to be just for me. It’s going to be for all of the clean athletes out there and all of the straight guys who get passed over for the dirty guys because he’s on top right now. I feel a moral obligation to the people who do things right.”
Do you believe Dominick Reyes is a legitimate threat to Jon Jones?
