Dominick Reyes’ tactical approach in the latter rounds of his UFC 247 headliner vs. Jon Jones appeared to have cost him.
Reyes (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) failed to capture the UFC light heavyweight title in a controversial unanimous decision loss to Jones (26-1 MMA, 20-1 UFC) at this past weekend’s event in Houston, where all three cageside judges handed the fight to “Bones” despite a stiff test from the challenger.
An aggressive Reyes appeared to have worked his way to a lead over Jones heading into the championship rounds, and that ultimately led to him taking a more cautious approach the bout’s final stages – an approach he’d only find out was a fatal mistake after Jones’ hand was raised at the end of the fight.
“Yeah, I wish I would have knocked him out,” Reyes said on “Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show.” “I wish I could have finished the fight, but I felt like I was being a little tactical there, too, at the end. I felt like I was winning, and I didn’t want to put myself in too much danger. You’ve got to be technical with your approach as well.”
Despite his assumption, judges did not have Reyes up three rounds to none. In fact, only one of the judges had Reyes taking the first two rounds, with the other two having it one round a piece after 10 minutes.
Reyes appeared to be slowing down in the later rounds, where he was briefly outstruck, but he insists that he was just trying not to be overzealous and get caught with something late.
“My cardio felt pretty good,” Reyes said. “I wasn’t feeling like I hit a wall or anything like that. I was just being a little more conservative in my approach because I am fighting Jon Jones; he’s extremely dangerous. He has crazy spins and stuff like that, so I was being a little more conservative in my approach, but I still was putting it on him. He was forcing me to beat him up in the fourth round. It’s crazy.”
UFC 247 was a night was filled with controversial decisions, but one judges’ scorecard in the main event, a 49-46 awarded by Joe Soliz in favor of Jones, had Reyes completely baffled.
“For me, 1, 2 and 3 were home runs; they were knockouts,” Reyes said. “I mean, I knocked it out of the park in those rounds. … I don’t know, it sucks. I came out there and fought a nearly perfect fight. That’s what it was going to take to beat this guy, and I did it. For that night, I was better than Jon Jones.”
Dominick Reyes on conservative finish vs. Jon Jones: 'I felt like I was winning'