Was Dominick Reyes in the NFL? All About the UFC Star’s Career Before MMA

Dominick Reyes came awfully close to achieving his dream of being a UFC champion but just fell short in both title fight appearances. Fans hardly need to be reminded of the Mexican-American’s UFC 247 clash against Jon Jones in 2020, where he almost became the first and only person to ever beat the GOAT contender in the octagon. His second run at the title six months later ended in devastation, being at the receiving end of a brutal first-round KO at the hands of Polish powerhouse Jan Blachowicz.

His five-round war with Jones and brutal loss to Blachowicz led to a sharp decline in his MMA career, which saw two more brutal KO losses at the hands of ex-champ Jiri Prochazka and Ryan Spann. His MMA career is eerily similar to his football career, where despite being a promising college football athlete, failed to make it to the big leagues. On that note, in this article, let’s take a look at ‘The Devastator’s unfortunate football career.

All about Dominick Reyes’ football career

‘The Devastator’ used to be a Division-1 college football player. Growing up in a poor Mexican-American household in Hesperia, California, Dominick Reyes’ parents encouraged him to play sports to avoid getting caught up with the local gangs prevalent in a city ridden with violent crime.

Reyes was a wrestler in high school and pursued football as well, both activities would prove consequential for him later on his life. While pursuing a B.S. in Information Systems at Stony Brook University in New York, he joined their football team.

Dominick Reyes played the starting safety on the Stony Brooks Seawolves and showed incredible potential while at it. After all, he made the All-Conference team twice and held the record for the most tackles in Stony Brook history. Not to mention, he would go on to become the captain of the team, another clear indication of the caliber of athlete he was (and indeed is, just in another sport). Logically, Reyes felt that the next step would be a spot in the National Football League. So what went wrong? Let’s find out.

Was Dominick Reyes drafted in the NFL?

‘The Devastator’ attended the combine at the New York Jets’ facility, where everything seemed to be going well for the Hispanic-American fighter. Stature-wise, he was the right build, being bigger than most of the other guys there, and felt he was performing better than everyone else. Or so it seemed.

“I thought it was going well. When I was doing drills, forward drills and backpedaling, I had the smoothest backpedal. I covered the most ground. I made my interceptions. I felt like everything was going great… But it didn’t. It didn’t go well, I guess, as I thought it did. I don’t know what it was, but it didn’t work out. And it was crushing. Oh man, it was full-on crushing,” Reyes would recall in an interview.

In the end, his speed was deemed ‘average’, and Reyes went undrafted in the 2013 NFL draft. While he did try out for the Canadian Football League, his heart was not in it, and he returned home to California, which would serve as the most consequential part of his life.

Why did ‘The Devastator’ switch to MMA?

With his NFL dream ending in an anti-climax in 2013, Reyes was predictably devastated. In 2014, a year after graduating college and going undrafted in the League, ‘The Devastator’ started working in construction, and his father’s cabinetry business. At the advice of his mother, who was instrumental in pulling him out of a dark place, Reyes started training in his brother, Alexander’s MMA gym.

With a background in high school wrestling, he took the logical next step and started his MMA career. But he still seemed to be two minds about committing full-time to his MMA career at this time. Three years after his pro-MMA debut, he took up an IT job in a California school in 2017. That same year, he would make his UFC debut, and Reyes’ purpose finally came calling to him. In 2019, he finally quit his job to concentrate on his UFC career. The rest, as they say, is history. What do you think about Dominick Reyes’ football career?