Dominick Reyes claims he’s the reason Jon Jones moved up to heavyweight

Dominick Reyes believes nearly beating Jon Jones at UFC 247 is the reason ‘Bones’ is moving up to heavyweight.

Jones edged out a decision over Reyes in a fight that many thought the challenger should’ve won. Yet, the judges gave it to ‘Bones’ and since that fight, he has not fought and is bulking up for a heavyweight move. According to Reyes, there were talks of booking an immediate rematch but Jones backed out and instead wanted to go to heavyweight.

“The whole thing was we are going to run it back. Then the pandemic started and I don’t know what he started doing at home and started feeling a different kind of way,” Reyes said on The MMA Hour. “All of the sudden it was, ‘no, I’m going to heavyweight, screw that, there’s too much risk, I don’t get paid enough to fight him. I’m not going to fight him without double, you have to pay me double to fight that guy again’ It was like, what, I was getting contender money, bro, screw you, I should be getting pay-per-views the next fight. It was weird how it all happen, he was down, everything was good, Dana said we were gonna do it then nope.”

Not only did Jon Jones back out of the rematch, but Dominick Reyes believes he’s the reason ‘Bones’ moved up to heavyweight.

Given it seems unlikely that a rematch will happen, Reyes admits he is disappointed as he won’t get any closure on it.

“That is the reason why (he moved up to heavyweight). I don’t take any solace in it, I mean if we would’ve rematched I would’ve had closure in the situation, it is what it is,” Reyes said.

After Reyes lost the decision to Jones, he went on to lose by KO to Jan Blachowicz for the belt and then suffered a KO loss to Jiri Prochazka.

What do you make of Dominick Reyes saying he’s the reason Jon Jones moved to heavyweight?