Dominick Reyes recounts “running around the streets of New York” with Israel Adesanya

Dominick Reyes, who will battle Jan Blachowicz for the UFC light heavyweight title at UFC 253 this September, has some fond memories with Israel Adesanya.

Reyes was asked about Adesanya, who is scheduled to defend the UFC middleweight title against Paulo Costa in the UFC 253 main event, on the latest episode of Submission Radio.

The upcoming light heavyweight title challenger implied that he’s hoping for some more quality time with the middleweight champ, having had some good times with him during a previous visit to New York.

“It’s gonna be cool [to share the UFC 253 card with him], he’s a cool guy,” Reyes said. “We’ve had a few conversations, we’ve had a couple of drinks together. It was a good time. I like Izzy a lot, but that doesn’t matter. There’s what, another 14 fights on the card? The only fight that matters to me is my fight. I’m probably not even going to see the main event. So, it’s cool.

“We were doing something for another media outlet and I was drinking Yuenglings, because East Coast has Yuengling beer,” he added. “it was really good. I was drinking Yuenglings and we were out, we just had a good time, man. We were running around the streets of New York.”

While Reyes doesn’t believe he’ll be able to watch the UFC 253 main event live, given that he’ll be fighting right before it, he does expect Adesanya to successfully defend against Costa.

“I have Izzy winning,” Reyes said. “He has a massive reach advantage and he knows how to use his reach and he also has extremely good footwork. Paulo is kind of plotting straight forward kind of fighter, and Izzy moves well laterally. So, you all know what happens when you get a well-moving fighter against a straight forward fighter.”

Do you think Dominick Reyes and Israel Adesanya will leave the cage with belts at UFC 253?