Dominick Reyes not planning on UFC return until 2022: “I gotta take care of my brain a little bit”

UFC light heavyweight fighter Dominick Reyes is not planning on a UFC return until 2022, saying “I gotta take care of my brain a little bit.”

Reyes is one of the best light heavyweights in the UFC but he is coming off of three straight losses to Jiri Prochazka, Jan Blachowicz, and Jon Jones. The fight against Prochazka, in particular, was a brutal war that left Reyes knocked out cold. It was a very difficult fight for Reyes and he has taken off the past four months since then. In fact, Reyes says that he wants to take even more time off in order to heal his brain from that fight. He recognizes how much damage he took and he wants to make sure he does his comeback right.

Speaking to MMA reporter James Lynch in a recent interview, Reyes spoke about the healing process and explained why he wants to be cautious about his return to the UFC.

“It was like two months just to heal my superficial injuries as well as brain injuries and things like that (from the Prochazka fight). Then I had knee surgery, so I had to take another month or two for that. So it’s been about four months off. Really not that much considering the damage that was done,” Reyes said. “But yeah man, I took time off. I wasn’t going to the gym and saying I need to keep training. It’s like bro, I actually need to heal. This is real sh*t. I want to be able to talk to my grandkids when I’m older. It’s part of the process, man. I could be a macho man about it and be like, ‘Nah I’m good, I’m in the gym.’ Nah, man. I’m healing up. This sh*t is real life, bro, and you gotta heal. I’m not fighting until at the earliest February, mid-February. I gotta take care of my brain a little bit here.”

Who do you want to see Dominick Reyes fight in his return to the Octagon next year?