Jon Jones Reacts With One Word as Stipe Miocic Calls Francis Ngannou the ‘Best Heavyweight in the World’

Everybody needs a bit of validation, but it seems Jon Jones does more so than most. Despite UFC President Dana White constantly reaffirming his status as the greatest of all time, Jones seems to be bothered by what his former nemesis Stipe Miocic thinks of him. And what does Miocic think? The former world champion claims Francis Ngannou is the best heavyweight in the world. 

Ngannou has a strong case for being considered the best in the world. Recency bias is a huge factor in MMA, which also helps Ngannou out massively. But, over the past few years, he has been way more active than Jones, and that too, across two sports. Not only that, it seems ‘The Predator’ is improving leaps and bounds every time he steps into a fight.

Ngannou was the UFC heavyweight champion before leaving the company. He has since become the PFL heavyweight champion. Now, because, the UFC belt was never taken from him, this makes him the lineal heavyweight champion of the world. Not to forget, he also took on Tyson Fury on his boxing debut and almost defeated the world champion. That is an impressive list of achievements!

So, it doesn’t come as a surprise that when The Schmo asked Miocic who the ‘best heavyweight’ on the planet was, his go-to answer was Ngannou.

“I’ll go Francis just because he is tearing it up and doing great. I’ll go Francis”, Miocic confidently said. 

Jones who came across this on social media, shared a sarcastic response to the interview on his Instagram story and added, 

“Of Course.”

Unfortunately for fans, we will never find out the answer to this question. Jones’ history as a champion is unparalleled but so are his doping tests and dodging allegations.

A super fight between Jones and Ngannou is something that was said to be in the talks. However, Jones remained out of action the entire time Ngannou held the heavyweight title in the UFC.

Ngannou left the UFC in January 2023, after contract negotiations with the brass went sour. Co-incidentally, Jones made his comeback two months later in March 2023, and took the heavyweight title by defeating Ciryl Gane. 

However, all that is in the past because given Ngannou’s relationship with the UFC brass, a super fight with Jones to decide who the most dangerous heavyweight on the planet seems out of the question. Fortunately, Jones has another way to prove his greatness.

Betting odds favor Aspinall over ‘Bones’

Dana White is feeling confident that a fight between heavyweight champ Jones and Tom Aspinall will happen this year. Aspinall, who won the interim heavyweight title by beating Sergei Pavlovich in November 2023, has been calling for a fight with Jones ever since.

However, after Jones returned from an 18-month injury layoff to fight Stipe Miocic in November, he made it clear that he’d need a massive payday to fight Aspinall. The whole situation was a little more complicated than this actually. 

In the lead-up to the UFC 310 fight against Miocic, Jones tried to put his own spin on the proposed fight with Aspinall. In a matter of days, Jones went from asking Aspinall to fight more champions to deserve a match with him to simply declining the fight due to the British fighter being rude to him.

Jones later claimed that at this point in his career, he would only fight someone like Aspinall, if the payout was big enough for him to not care about win or less anymore.

However, the public support seems to have been overwhelmingly in Aspinall’s favor, making him the gambling man’s favorite to win the duel.

Aspinall hasn’t fought since July when he defeated Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 to defend his interim title. It should be noted that interim titles don’t get defended unless it’s against the undisputed champion. 

But he’s already back in training, despite the uncertainty of a title unification match with Jones. Aspinall says that he’s not sure when the fight will be scheduled but expects to get a date soon. 

Jones can easily put an end to all claims questioning his greatness. Take the Aspinall fight and beat him like he has beaten everyone else!