“Life Might Be Over for Me”: What Happened to Dominic Reyes? Health Complications and Injury History

UFC lightweight fighter and two-time title contender Dominick Reyes will be back in action this weekend after 574 days away. Having combated some health complications, ‘The Devastator’s career has gone down a downward spiral ever since he lost to Jon Jones, halting his undefeated streak. But Reyes is coming back to fight Dustin Jacoby at UFC Louisville and possibly get back in the winning column.

The last year and a half hasn’t been pleasant for Dominick Reyes due to his health complications. He was supposed to make his return at UFC 297, the first pay-per-view of this year, but the fight fell off and later, he discovered that he was in a medical predicament as well, and it was a really serious one! Reyes would reveal the situation he had to deal with when he was undergoing his treatment in a recent interview.

‘The Devastator’ was living on a “day-to-day” basis

When The light heavyweight contender was going through his medical ailments, he would not even think about how fast he could return to fight because his real worries were centered around staying alive to see another day. “The thing, it was like, life might be over for me. It wasn’t about fighting,” Reyes told Fullsend MMA, adding, “I was just happy to wake up every day after I got the diagnosis… It was like, ‘Okay, you’re day-to-day for weeks.’ I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘Yeah, you’re day-to-day. If you wake up, then you’re good. If not, it’s not good.”

Due to the fact that he was able to get out of such a debilitating condition, Dominick Reyes’s outlook on life changed drastically. And now that he still has the opportunity to compete at the highest level, he is as happy as he’s ever been. “Gratitude is everything. I’m just grateful to be here. Grateful to wake up, Grateful to be able to train and still fight in the UFC… Just being alive is enough, but now, I still get to what I love to do,” Dominick Reyes added. But what was the ailment he was going through? Let’s check that out.

What happened to Dominick Reyes?

Carlos Ulberg and Dominick Reyes were paired to tee off on the Sean Strickland vs Dricus du Plessis headliner. The fight fell off eventually due to an injury suffered by the Kiwi fighter. But guess what? A week later, Dominick Reyes found out that his body was significantly in a bad state, for which he had to be put on blood thinners for a quarter of a year. “Me and Carlos were slated to fight, January 20th. He pulled out. I don’t know why. It’s an injury, obviously, but he’s not going to say what his injury is. And then a week later, I ended up getting blood clots. Deep vein thrombosis. So yeah, I’m out for a minute,” Reyes stated during an interview in February.

That state made Dominick Reyes unable to do much physically intensive work, like training or weight training. Meanwhile, he mentioned that he was glad that he had diagnosed himself when he did because if he hadn’t learned about it, it could have cost him his life. “I’m lucky to be alive right now. That’s always nice. We caught it early, so it didn’t become a pulmonary embolism, and thank God for that,” shared the former 2-time title challenger. However, that wasn’t the only medical issue he’s dealt with, because a year ago, he busted up his shoulder as well.

Details on Reyes’s shoulder injury

After racking up a fourth consecutive loss, ‘The Devastator’ found himself in another agonizing situation. He wrecked his shoulder for some reason, but Dominick Reyes did not provide any explanation as to what led to the injury. The light heavyweight contender also did not talk about how long he would be nursing that injury. “Time to get fixed up so I can get back at it,” Reyes wrote in an Instagram post, but the fans did not seem too worried about it, and their reactions to it weren’t pleasing either.

While numerous fans prayed for Dominick Reyes’s speedy recovery, some fans would just jibe at him by claiming that he’s got no chin to take his opponents’ strikes. The chin comments were related to the series of KO losses Reyes suffered in his last three fights. Nevertheless, ‘The Devastator’ is back and we’ll have to see if he’s better than he’s ever been.

Dominick Reyes has a point to prove this weekend against Dustin Jacoby. But will he be able to turn things around at Louisville? We’ll have to wait for that.