Former title challenger Dominick Reyes booked to return at UFC 281

Dominick Reyes will be making the walk to the Octagon again.

According to MMAJunkie, Reyes will face Ryan Spann at UFC 281 on November 12 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The main event of the card will see Israel Adesanya take on Alex Pereira for the middleweight title.

Dominick Reyes (12-3) is on a three-fight losing skid and hasn’t fought since May of 2021 when he suffered a KO loss to Jiri Prochazka. Before that, he suffered a TKO loss to Jan Blachowicz for the vacant light heavyweight title, and to start the skid he dropped a decision to Jon Jones for the belt. Reyes started his MMA career out, going 12-0, including going 6-0 in the UFC with wins over Chris Weidman, Volkan Oezdemir, Ovince Saint Preux, Jared Cannonier, Jeremy Kimball, and Joachim Christensen.

Since Reyes’ loss to Prochazka, he said he was going to take a ton of time off to let his brain heal and not rush anything after back-to-back knockout losses.

“I took time off. I wasn’t going to the gym and saying I need to keep training. It’s like bro, I actually need to heal. This is real sh*t. I want to be able to talk to my grandkids when I’m older. It’s part of the process, man,” Reyes said last October to James Lynch. “I could be a macho man about it and be like, ‘Nah I’m good, I’m in the gym.’ Nah, man. I’m healing up. This sh*t is real life, bro, and you gotta heal. I’m not fighting until at the earliest February, mid-February. I gotta take care of my brain a little bit here.”

Ryan Spann (20-7) returned to the win column last time out with a submission win over Ion Cutelaba. The Fortis MMA product is 2-2 in his last four with a submission loss to Anthony Smith in the main event of a Fight Night card, a TKO win over Misha Cirkunov, and a KO loss to Johnny Walker.

With the addition of Reyes vs. Spann, UFC 281 is now as follows: