Jon Jones and Every Loss in Dominick Reyes’ MMA & UFC Career

UFC light heavyweight contender Dominick Reyes has had an up-and-down kind of UFC run lately, although he’s found himself on the winning side for most of his fights. However, he does have some losses, while some fights were close, other fights, not so much. As ‘The Devastator’ makes his return to the Octagon at UFC 310 against veteran Anthony Smith, we’ll take a closer look at the defeats Reyes has faced in his entire MMA career.

Dominick Reyes came into the UFC with a lot of hype, as he was undefeated. He even went on an impressive undefeated run until he got his first UFC title fight at a time when the arguably greatest fighter ever, Jon Jones, reigned supreme.

What happened when Dominick Reyes faced Jon Jones?

Reyes lost his undefeated record when he fought Jon Jones back in 2020 at UFC 247, which was the fifteenth title fight for UFC CEO Dana White’s pound-for-pound number-one fighter.‘The Devastator’ looked sharp as he showcased his skills perfectly in the first two rounds. However, Reyes lost his momentum in the fourth and fifth, with Jones taking full advantage of it.

Meanwhile, the third round was in great focus as many pundits believed Dominick Reyes had done enough to win the fight. Unfortunately, judges didn’t view it that way, leading them to give Jon Jones a unanimous decision win in his very last light heavyweight title fight.

Despite being a big supporter of Jon Jones, Dana White scored the fight 3-1 in favor of Reyes when the duo squared off for the final round. Moreover, even the 55-year-old promoter’s children couldn’t believe that Jon Jones turned out to be the judges’ pick for the victor.

“The scoring was all over the map. Joe Solo, the former matchmaker here, had it a draw. Kevin Iole hit me up, he had Jones 3-2 going into the last round. I had Dominick Reyes 3-1 going into the last round. My kids are terrorizing me that the fix is in and ‘How can this happen, dad? Reyes won that fight,’ and the list goes on and on of people that are reaching out to me,” said Dana White at the post-fight presser.

That Jon Jones loss would send Dominick Reyes down a path of consecutive losses, as ‘The Devastator’ lost yet another chance to become the 205-pound champion.

Jiri Prochazka, Jan Blachowicz and other MMA losses

Dominick Reyes is a pretty good fighter, and most of his losses have come against former light heavyweight champions. Following the loss to Jon Jones, ‘Bones’ had to relinquish his UFC title due to a pay dispute with Dana White as he was looking to fight Francis Ngannou. Dana White then vacant title up for grabs between Reyes and Jan Blachowicz.

The Polish star handed Dominick Reyes his second loss at UFC 253 in just the second round by knocking the 34-year-old. Jan Blachowicz stopped the former title challenger with a left hand, which wobbled ‘The Devastator’ and closed the show with some ground and pound. The following year, Reyes would return to make the climb back to title contention once again but failed to do so.

After losing out on a chance to become a champion for a second time, the bad luck for Dominick Reyes continued. He would lose a couple more fights to Ryan Spann and former champion Jiri Prochazka in a similar fashion to his previous loss, a TKO, but these two fights finished pretty quickly in the opening round.

After almost two years away from action, Dominick Reyes returned with a bang, knocking out Dustin Jacoby in the first round in June, earlier this year. But can he maintain this momentum against Anthony Smith? Well, only time will tell.