There's no official confirmation as of yet, but the expectation is that UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones will defend his heavyweight title against Stipe Miocic later this year. Here are all the details we know so far as well as the general timeline of events.
When Jones returned to the Octagon for the first time since Feb. 2019 at UFC 285 earlier this year and quickly defeated Ciryl Gane to become the heavyweight champion, he quickly turned his attention to fighting Miocic.
Miocic is a two-time heavyweight champion and widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight of all time. And so, it wasn't surprising to see Jones enticed by the idea of adding him to his resume.
“Stipe Miocic, I hope you're training, my guy,” Jones said in his post-fight interview with Miocic in attendance. “You're the greatest heavyweight of all-time, and that's what I want. I want you — real bad.”
Miocic was certainly reciprocative to the idea.
He's been open to fighting Jones for a while, but more than anything, he wants his heavyweight title back after losing it to Francis Ngannou back in March 2021 — he hasn't competed since.
Initially, there was talk of having the fight take place during International Fight Week, particularly with the UFC 290 pay-per-view event. However, nothing came to fruition with both Jones and Miocic accusing the other of ducking.
See you in July. pic.twitter.com/lH7ZzemPCH
— Stipe Miocic (@stipemiocic) March 16, 2023
Weird… because last month you said I was the one running 🤔 @JonnyBones pic.twitter.com/m2YgKeJ922
— Stipe Miocic (@stipemiocic) April 13, 2023
Rumors then started to float that it would take place in November which is when the promotion usually hosts an event at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Jones liked the idea and being a New York native, even teased the prospect of potentially retiring with a win over Miocic in his home state.
“How cool would it be to spend my retirement fight dominating the greatest heavyweight of all time, in my home state at Madison Square Garden?”
UFC president Dana White later confirmed that the fight was still the plan and that it was being targeted for New York City.
“Jon Jones, next, you know obviously I’m pretty confident that Jon wants Stipe,” White said in early May. “He looks at Stipe as, people look at him as the greatest heavyweight of all time. And I think that’s what Jon wants. He wants to beat him convincingly. I mean, he’s already the G.O.A.T., but to go down as the greatest of all time. And it’ll be very hard to break his record if he does do it.”
“Yes,” White added when asked if New York was the plan. “Yeah, that’s what we’re targeting. That’s what we’re thinking. [It’s] likely.”
However, fast forward to June and there's still no real update or progress regarding the highly-anticipated heavyweight title matchup.
Instead, Jones is calling out WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury with White even going as far as saying he would promote an MMA matchup between the pair.
It's led to worries for some, like former UFC two-weight champion Daniel Cormier, that the fight won't end up happening — just like the Jones vs. Ngannou fight.
“Still nothing. It really just feels like we’re gonna miss this one too and that’s unfortunate. We just missed Francis Ngannou vs. Jon Jones, one that we’ve wanted for a long time. Now we got Jon Jones talking to Tyson Fury, which Dana said, ‘We’ll make it happen.’
“… It’s exactly what happened whenever Francis Ngannou and Jon Jones was the talk of the town and all of the sudden it started to shift. Because we as humans, we have short attention spans, there’s something that way, I look and I’m gone. We’ve got to make this happen [with Jones and Miocic]. Otherwise, we’re gonna miss out on another one. This is too big of a fight to let fall by the wayside.
“I don’t know what’s happening right now on the backend that’s not allowing for this to come together, but it needs to come together for the sake of the heavyweight division. Because right now we can’t afford to have Jones missing for as long as he was last time or even a fraction of that. He seemed to be wanting to right away. It’s up to now Stipe Miocic, the challenger, to make it happen.”
Of course, if the plan still remains Madison Square Garden — likely to be UFC 295 on Nov. 11 — there's still just over five months to go for the fight to get booked. It's not uncommon for fights of this magnitude to get booked as late as two months before an event.
But with that said, the longer time passes, the more the MMA world will naturally start to worry with the lack of updates, especially when it's for a fight just about everyone agrees should be next.
Hopefully, we'll get an official fight announcement in the next month or two.
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