Dominick Reyes just wants to have fun

“It's just like everything happened the way it was supposed to happen,” he said. “It wasn't my time. I don't think I was on the right path. And if I had won that battle, I would have been a not nice person. Everything happens for a reason, that's all I can really say. God had a plan for me back then. I looked at it a million different ways, man. Believe me, I was bitter, I was angry, I was wrathful. I had all kinds of different emotions, but at the end of the day, everything happens for a reason. I did everything I could, and the world saw what happened that night.”

The fight world moved on, and so did Reyes. Seven months later, he was in Abu Dhabi, fighting Jan Blachowicz for the vacant 205-pound crown. He lost that fight, and the next to Jiri Prochazka, and the fight after that to Ryan Spann.

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“The next three after Jones, it was me trying to get things back under control,” he said. “My last fight, the fight before that with Jiri, I got caught, I just wanted to bleed. And eventually I knocked him out. And then the fight with Jan, it was me trying to do more than I should have done outside of fighting.”

It's important to point out that Reyes entered the UFC with only six fights under his belt. He had a 12-0 record when he faced perhaps the greatest fighter of all time, so if you believe in the notion that there are growing pains when growing up in the public eye, that applies here.

“I'm learning my lessons in front of the whole world,” he said. “I didn't lose any fights before I came to the UFC. I didn't have those situations and all that when I came to the UFC at 13-3 or 14-2; I didn't lose. But when I lost, I lost in front of the whole world.”