Once, two-time UFC light heavyweight title challenger Dominic Reyes Stoney Brook was perhaps the greatest safety in football history. He also upset NFL aspirations when he first trekked from Southern California to Long Island for college, which he did not expect.
“My goal was to just get a degree, to be honest” Rees told the Post. “It was free education [that] It was a big deal for me. But then, when I realized that I was great, the NFL became my ultimate goal. “
It has been eight years since he passed Reyes (12–2, nine finishes) in the draft, but within two years he had already gone 2–0 in mixed martial arts. And with the 2021 NFL Draft just hours before he raps against Jerry Prochazka from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas at the ESPN-aired UFC Fight Night, he has completely moved on from football. He says he did not even know that the draft was being held until this week when asked about it.
Reyes said, “I am completely into ‘Nohar’ life.”
Of course, life focuses on MMA. Reyes spent all of his 205 pounds competing for 2020 UFC Gold. Last February, he came to a unanimous verdict in a heated debate against long-time pound-for-pound staple John Jones. When Jones made the long-awaited decision to move up to heavyweight and renounce the light heavyweight belt, Reyes was booked for the September clash against Ray Blasicoise to determine the new champion. That fight was very difficult for Reyes, who finished through a second-round TKO for the first time in his career.
He said Blachowicz “essentially went on to call the damage to a disaster.”
“I didn’t perform,” Reyes said. “I’m not worried about winning and losing, I’m worried about not performing. That was the point for me.”
“I was concerned with the outcome,” he said, noting why he did not live up to his expectations. “I wanted to win the belt. I did not want to lose. You know that when you fight or play a game or anything to lose, you will not perform. You are not there to lose. It is not bad for an athlete to play for the best, not to lose but to play to win, instead of playing, [your] Highest Level. … I didn’t want to knock out. I did not want to make a mistake. And in doing so, I made many mistakes, and I was knocked out. “
The 31-year-old Reyes quickly recovered himself that he was “knocked out” instead of Coil, though he swears he has put both 2020 defeats in the past. However, the fight was halted with a definite result, and Blachowicz already successfully defended his championship once. He will put it on the line later this year, but Reyes’s return to that position starts earlier this week against Prochazka (27-3-1, 26 finishes).
The 28-year-old player from the Czech Republic made a monster impact in his UFC debut last year after competing almost exclusively for Japan-based Rizin FF for the past five years. The heavy-handed Prozza, whose eccentric personality also appears in the cage, posed in front of the UFC audience in July with the thundering KO of former title challenger Volkan Ozdemir. They have won (T) KO by 11 in a row, the previous nine.
“I respect how he gets into the fighting game,” Reyes said of Prochazka, who he had not yet met as a midweek. “He has more, like, a Samurai style, fighting while embracing and truly defining him.”
Prochazka could knock on the door of the UFC Title Challenge, a victory in his first battle on American soil. But Reyes, who complemented the Czech striker’s first UFC win, is confident he has the tools to turn the tables for his opponent, whom he has been training since December.
“I think he’s a good fighter. I think he’s a bit rusty, but his personality is treated like that.” I think he fights heartily on his sleeve. “
“With any force, you can redirect it and use it against them, if they are careless with it. And he can be careless with it.” He has a lot of power. He has a lot of things. , But he has a hard time with it, and I plan to use his style with him. “
Reyes brings what he considers to be a more healthy frame of mind for this fight, while the last time he stepped into the octagon, everything he does can only be an asset.
“Before the Ray fight, I wasn’t enjoying the little things, like the opportunity to just be there,” Reyes says, “and this time, I am.”
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