Dominick Reyes says he’s lucky to be alive.
Reyes was scheduled to face Carlos Ulberg at UFC 297 in Toronto on Jan. 20, but the fight was scratched after Ulberg suffered an injury. The two were then rebooked to fight on March 30 at UFC Atlantic City, but Reyes was forced to withdraw, due to an undisclosed reason.
Now, speaking to James Lynch of MiddleEasy, Reyes opened up on going through a life-threatening blood clot that will keep him out of the Octagon for quite some time.
“Carlos and I were slated to fight on January 20. He pulled out. I don’t know why. An injury, obviously, but he’s not going to say what his injury is,” Reyes said. “Then a week later, I ended up getting blood clots. Deep vein thrombosis so I’m gonna be out for a minute… I’m lucky to be alive, that’s always nice. We caught it early so it didn’t become a pulmonary embolism and thank God for that which is kind of crazy because I got a massage while my leg was hurting. I thought I pulled a muscle in my calf, so I got a massage and that’s the worst thing you could ever do. I’m lucky I didn’t die on that massage table right there.”
With Dominick Reyes dealing with the blood clots, he says he’s on blood thinners which will keep him out of action for a minimum of three months. But, the focus for Reyes is getting through this and getting healthy.
“This is gut-wrenching. It’s definitely a tough situation. I’m out for a minimum of three months because of blood thinners,” Reyes said.
Dominick Reyes is currently 12-4 as a pro but is on a four-fight losing skid. He’s coming off a KO loss to Ryan Spann in November of 2022. Before that, Reyes was knocked out by Jiri Prochazka and Jan Blachowicz, while the losing skid started with a controversial decision loss to Jon Jones for the belt.
Despite being on a four-fight losing skid, and three knockout losses in a row, and now dealing with blood clots, Dominick Reyes says there was no talk of retirement.
“No, I’m not ready to retire at all. Like I said to everybody else, the difference between me and most every other single fighter is my faults happened on a world stage when everybody was paying attention,” Reyes concluded. “I didn’t lose in the regional circuit, I didn’t make those mistakes in the regional circuit when nobody saw it. My mistakes happened in front of the whole world.”
