Dominick Reyes goes nuclear on Jon Jones for not fighting Tom Aspinall before retiring: "He ran from me"

Dominick Reyes recently shared his two cents on Jon Jones vacating the UFC heavyweight title and retiring without fighting Tom Aspinall. 'The Devastator' accused Jones of stringing fans along and claimed that 'Bones' also ducked a rematch against him before moving to heavyweight.

After months of the then-interim heavyweight champion Aspinall chasing a title unification fight against Jones, the UFC legend surprised many by announcing his retirement from the sport in June. Aspinall was subsequently promoted to undisputed champion and is set to face Ciryl Gane next at UFC 321 in October.

Given that many fans wanted to see the Aspinall-Jones fight, the MMA icon's retirement caused quite a stir in the combat sports community. However, Reyes isn't surprised. In an appearence on the Pound 4 Pound podcast, Reyes shared his thoughts on Jones retiring without facing Aspinall and said:

"He just strings everyone along and lies and tells this and says that and then he's smug about it and then he's arrogant. He's not being genuine, man. We just want a genuine answer out of you, bro... That’s why everybody's mad about it, he’s just trying to play with all of us."

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He continued:

"After [our] fight I lobbied for the rematch for the entire year. He dropped the belt and went to heavyweight. Literally that's what happened. People forget that too. He ran from me."

Dominick Reyes reflects on Jon Jones fight at UFC 247 in 2020

On the same podcast, Dominick Reyes also reflected on his iconic fight against Jon Jones at UFC 247 in February 2020 and explained why he thought he should have won. After five hard rounds, Jones got his hands raised via unanimous decision and successfully defended the light heavyweight title against Reyes.

Reiterating his belief that he was robbed by the judges, Reyes looked back on his fight against Jones and said:

"First three easily. He had nothing for me. He might have landed two punches in all three rounds... He took me down in the fourth and fifth [rounds], but I got up in 1.5 seconds. Now that counts as nothing. He took me down, wasted energy, I got up, and then elbowed him."

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Edited by Nishant Zende.