5 UFC stars who we haven't heard from in a while

#4. Doo Ho Choi – UFC featherweight

Doo Ho Choi's momentum has been stalled by injuries again

At one point a few years ago, the UFC’s featherweight division had few hotter fighters than Doo Ho Choi. With a tremendous 11-1 record to his name, ‘The Korean Superboy’ seemed destined for stardom when he signed with the promotion in late 2014.

Choi lived up to the hype early on, knocking out his first three opponents in violent fashion, but in truth, alarm bells should’ve been ringing even then. Despite impressing in the octagon, it took him three years to complete his first three bouts, suggesting he was somewhat injury prone.

‘The Korean Superboy’ suffered his first octagon loss in December 2016, falling against Cub Swanson in a tight decision, but the fight was so good that nobody really cared about the loss.

However, Choi then spent over a year on the shelf with injuries before returning to lose to Jeremy Stephens in early 2018.

Another year then passed by before his most recent bout, a December 2019 loss to Charles Jourdain. Since then, ‘The Korean Superboy’ has not been in action, with the last fight he was linked with being cancelled last July.

The likelihood is that Choi is injured yet again. While he’s still got time to turn things around – he’s only 30 years old, after all – it seems unlikely that he’ll live up to his early hype even if he does manage to return in the near future.

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#3. Dominick Reyes – UFC light heavyweight contender

Dominick Reyes is likely to be recuperating from his most recent knockout losses, explaining his absence

It seems like a lifetime has passed since Dominick Reyes pushed Jon Jones to the limit in their UFC light heavyweight title bout. Incredibly, the clash only took place just over two years ago.

At that point, it seemed inconceivable that Reyes would never hold gold inside the promotion, especially as Jones chose to vacate the title rather than rematch ‘The Devastator’ in the summer of 2020. However, to say things haven’t gone to plan since would be an understatement.

Reyes was knocked out by Jan Blachowicz in their fight for the vacant title that September. Since then, he’s fought just once, suffering a horrendous knockout at the hands of Jiri Prochazka last May.

Since then, fans have heard very little from ‘The Devastator’, to the point that he isn’t even recognized as a title contender any more despite still being ranked as the UFC’s No.7 light heavyweight.

So where is Reyes? The most likely answer is that he’s still recuperating from two bad knockout losses. If that’s the case, then he’s probably being very smart.

‘The Devastator’ is still just 32 years old and given that his division’s current champ, Glover Teixeira, is over a decade older, there’s no reason why he can’t get back to the top in the future.

However, if he wants to do that, then he’ll need to stop taking so much damage. To sit out for a while and wait until he’s completely healed makes total sense. Essentially then, it wouldn’t be a shock at all if we don’t hear anything from Reyes until 2023.