Dominick Reyes continues to trade words with UFC legend Daniel Cormier, having taken issue with the former champion’s commentary on his fight last weekend.
At UFC 333, Reyes knocked out Azamat Murzakanov in round one, but the American’s delight was short lived; he seemingly heard Cormier’s commentary not long after the fight in Abu Dhabi, and he was not best pleased.
Reyes, 36, tweeted on Sunday, “Calling me kid, Mf I’m a grown ass man!”, to which Cormier, 47, replied: “Yo dom chill. I don’t call you kid negatively I’ve only spoke truth to you.
“When you do some amazing s*** like you did today I praise you. If you do something like the last fight with Johnny [Walker], I speak The Truth about that too. But these comments seem like you’ve been carrying something with you for a while. You can always talk to me. I’m not very hard to find.”
The pair continued to trade words, with Reyes adding: “Real talk, who actually likes hearing low IQ hater DC? Sick of being the nice guy while these clowns flat out disrespect and marginalize what I’ve done in this sport. These so called ‘experts’. And no, Jon Jones didn’t whoop all of us, he whooped you! Bad! Multiple times. Kid.”
Reyes was referring to his controversial decision loss to Jones in a 2020 title fight, and Cormier’s two prior defeats by Jones – with the first coming via decision before Jones knocked out his bitter rival in their rematch, only for the result to be overturned to a no-contest when Jones failed a drug test.
Reyes was not done there, however. In a video on his YouTube channel, he said on Monday: “DC says, ‘Well yeah, from southpaw right away. Murzakanov, you see Murzakanov switch to southpaw right away.’ The problem with this comment is Murzakanov is a southpaw naturally. He’s a natural southpaw, he fights southpaw every time.
“He never fights orthodox ever, so for [Cormier] to say he’s switching to southpaw is completely wrong. It just goes to show that he did no research or he’s just talking, so that’s the first minus for DC.
“[Co-commentator] Jon Anik mentions me for the first time, but he doesn’t comment on the action or the strategy, he just says that I had blood clots in 2022. This is kind of a dead horse comment. This has already been talked about, everybody already knows about my blood clots, and you’re commenting on something that really has nothing to do with the fight.
“At this point in the fight, I’ve already thrown multiple leg kicks and I’m moving really well on the outside, but up until this point, all they had done was just talk about Murzakanov.
“DC says: ‘Everyone wrote this kid off. Went a little bit on a losing streak, was not fighting well, now he’s back fighting the best ranked fighters in the world.’ That comment is incorrect because I have only fought ranked fighters in my career since going on that losing streak, so for him to say now I’m back fighting ranked fighters is another minus on his commentary, because he didn’t do his research.”
Ultimately, Reyes said, “The grades I’m going to give everyone: I’m going to give Jon Anik a B, B-plus; I’m going to give DC an F-plus; and Paul Felder, I’ll give him an A. He was focused on colour commentary, he was unbiased, and he kept it real.
“But yeah, I think it’s time to hold these guys accountable. We go out there and we fight with our hearts, all our hearts, and we give it our best every time we go out. I expect the same from everybody in the organisation: to go out there and give their best and get better.
“It’s not good enough just being in there just talking. You’ve got to do your research, you’ve got to be well informed, and you’ve got to be unbiased. Being biased, that’s not cool […] It doesn’t matter if you trained a guy or worked with a guy, whatever. You have to be unbiased when you go out there, so this is me holding these guys accountable.”
Cormier is a former light-heavyweight and heavyweight champion who retired from fighting in 2020.