Once upon a time, two-time UFC light heavyweight title challenger Dominick Reyes was perhaps the greatest safety in Stony Brook football history. He even harbored NFL aspirations, something he didn’t expect when he first trekked from Southern California to Long Island for college.
“My goal was just to get a degree, to be honest” Reyes told The Post. “It was the free education [that] was the big thing for me. But then, once I realized I was pretty good, the NFL became my ultimate goal.”
It’s been eight years since the league passed on Reyes (12-2, nine finishes) in the draft, but within two years he had already moved to 2-0 in mixed martial arts. And with the 2021 NFL Draft wrapping up a few hours before he headlines an ESPN-aired UFC Fight Night from UFC Apex in Las Vegas against Jiri Prochazka, he’s completely moved on from football. He says he didn’t even know the draft was happening this week until asked about it.
“I’m in a whole ‘nother life,” Reyes said.
That life, of course, is focused on MMA. Reyes spent his entire 2020 competing for UFC gold at 205 pounds. Last February, he came up short in a hotly-debated unanimous decision against longtime pound-for-pound staple Jon Jones. When Jones made the long-awaited decision to move up to heavyweight and relinquish the light heavyweight belt, Reyes was booked for a September clash against Jan Blachowicz to determine the new champion. That fight went haywire for Reyes, who was finished for the first time in his career via second-round TKO.
He went as far as to call the loss to Blachowicz “essentially a disaster.”
“I didn’t perform,” Reyes said. “I’m not concerned with the win and the loss, I’m concerned with not performing. That was the issue for me.”
Dominick Reyes (r.) and Jiri Prochazka weigh in ahead of their UFC Apex bout. Getty Images“I was concerned with the outcome,” he went on, addressing why he didn’t meet his own expectations. “I wanted to win the belt. I didn’t want to lose. You know when you fight or play a game or anything to not lose, you’re not gonna perform. You’re just out there to not lose. There’s no worse thing to an athlete than playing to not lose rather than playing to win, playing to perform at your best, [your] highest level. … I didn’t want to get knocked out. I didn’t want to make a mistake. And in doing that, I made several mistakes, and I got knocked out.”
Reyes, 31, quickly corrects himself that he got “knocked down” instead of KO’d, although he swears that he has put both 2020 defeats in the past. Nonetheless, the fight was halted with a definitive result, and Blachowicz already defended his championship once successfully. He’ll put it on the line later this year, but Reyes’ climb back to that position begins this weekend against Prochazka (27-3-1, 26 finishes).
The 28-year-old from the Czech Republic made a monster impact in his UFC debut last year after competing for the previous five years almost exclusively for Japan-based Rizin FF. The heavy-hitting Prochazka, whose eccentric personality manifests in the cage as well, introduced himself to the UFC’s audience with a thunderous KO of former title challenger Volkan Oezdemir in July. He’s won 11 in a row, the last nine by (T)KO.
“I respect how he approaches the fight game,” Reyes said of Prochazka, whom he had not yet met as of midweek. “He has more of, like, a samurai style, embracing the fight and really fighting defining him.”
Prochazka could be knocking on the door of a UFC title challenge with a win in his first fight on U.S. soil. But Reyes, who was complementary of the Czech striker’s first UFC win, feels confident he has the tools to turn the tables on his opponent, for whom he has been training since December.
“I think he’s a good fighter. I think he’s a little bit wild, but that kind of goes with his personality,” Reyes said. “I think he fights with his heart on his sleeve.”
“With any force, you can redirect it and use it against them, if they’re kind of being reckless with it. And he can be reckless with it,” he continued. “He has a lot of power. He has a lot of things going for him, but he has a hard time harnessing it, and I plan on using his wild style against him.”
Reyes brings what he views as a more healthy frame of mind to this fight than he had the last time he stepped into the octagon, something he expects can only be an asset.
“Before the Jan fight, I wasn’t enjoying the little things, like the opportunity just to be there,” Reyes says, “and this time, I am.”
