Jon Jones is gearing up for his highly anticipated return to the octagon this weekend, defending his heavyweight title against Stipe Miocic at the iconic Madison Square Garden. As the countdown comes to a close on the UFC 309 showdown, rising star Sharaputdin Magomedov has shared his thoughts on what makes Jones such a formidable fighter.
According to the light heavyweight striker, Jones’ success goes far beyond raw talent—it’s his ability to constantly adapt and push himself to new limits that’s kept him winning for so long.
The Russian fighter, in an exclusive to Red Corner MMA dived deeper into his prediction on how the heavyweight title fight could go down and said,
“They just can not deal with what he (Jones) brings into the octagon. So I don’t think it is a fight to miss. Of course Miocic is a very good fighter but he is past his peak. It would be nice to watch him fight one more time after Miocic.”
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While on paper, Jones vs Miocic is a clash between two fighters with impressive resumes, it is not as popular a match-up as it was in 2018. Miocic hasn’t fought in 3 years since his loss to former heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou at UFC 260.
And Jones himself has been out for a year or so with an injury after spending 3 years to move from light heavyweight to heavyweight. He won the title against Cyril Gane at UFC 285 in just over two minutes and has since been accused of holding up the decision with inactivity.
In addition to this, with interim champion Tom Aspinall on the sidelines, there’s a particular demand in the market for the title unification fight between Jones and the Brit.
But for now, Jones is focused on Miocic, especially after the firefighter uncharacteristically trash-talked him.
Jones is coming to “play”
Jones and Stipe have been rather cordial with each other leading up to this fight. However, with less than a week to go, things have heated up after Miocic called Jones a “b*tch” on the UFC Countdown show.
Jones didn’t hold back in his response, and responded to the comment by saying,
“Hiring black fighters to mimic me won’t help, Stipe. And you shouldn’t have called me a b*tch. Let’s play.”
This, of course, adds a little more spice to the UFC 309 main event. But given that both fighters are veterans of the sport, an assumption that this back and forth between the two will have any effect on the fight at all will be a fallacy.
The fighters are evenly matched even as the champion walks in as the betting favorite on D-Day. Miocic is a smart fighter, whose sheer experience provides the perfect retort to the cunning ways of the champion.
