Miami — UFC 327 light heavyweight Dominick Reyes has taken note of opponent Johnny Walker taking his “structured chaos” to Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.
“He’s working in Vegas with [Eric] Nicksick, I believe they’re trying to bring even more structure to his chaos. But either way I’m ready for complete, wild madness,” Reyes (15-5) said during this week’s UFC 327 media day. He’s been working with training partners who “I don’t even know what they were doing, but they were doing it,” as well as ones who were completely structured.
“My preparation for this fight was just ‘be ready for anything,'” Reyes added.
Walker has been known for his chaos since arriving in the UFC, a career that has run along the same timeline as Reyes. As such, they’ve been circling one another for a while, Reyes acknowledged on Wednesday.
“We’ve both been in the UFC pretty much the same time. I’d be coming up and we’d be right there, and then he’d fall down. Or he’d be coming up, we’d be right there, and then I’d fall down. So it’s been circling each other for sure.”
“I’ve actually been looking forward to fighting him for six or seven years now. Now it’s finally happening,” Reyes added. “Everything happens as it should, when it should, and here we are.”
Reyes had a career resurgence recently, after slumping following his title fight loss to Jon Jones. “The Devastator” secured three victories in 2024-25 before running into Carlos Ulberg (who coincidentally fights for the UFC light heavyweight title on Saturday). Processing that loss was “easier to process,” somewhat, coming off that successful run, noted Reyes.
“I mean it’s never easy to process, don’t get me wrong, losing sucks and I don’t want to lose ever, but it’s a part of life. Not just part of fighting, it’s part of life,” stated Reyes. “So it’s how you react to that loss, how you react to falling down that defines you.”
Having a baby boy in December put things in focus for Reyes. “It was like, dude it’s just one fight, one instance.” While admitting he was “pissed” because the fight was over so quickly, he added “it’s big, but there’s still light the next day. I’m still here, I’m still fighting. It’s not over for me.”
Watch the full UFC 327 media day appearance by Dominick Reyes above.
