Stipe Miocic has waited well over three years to return to the Octagon, but the former UFC heavyweight king is as confident as ever entering his title fight with Jon Jones at UFC 309 later this month from inside Madison Square Garden in New York City.
There’s been a lot of fight fans and MMA enthusiasts who have trashed the legacy fight between Miocic and Jones, but it’s still one hell of a matchup. Despite his lengthy layoff from fighting, Miocic is widely regarded as one of the best heavyweight fighters of all time and always seems to be training to stay in shape. The 42-year-old is certainly on the tail end of his career (if not the final straw), but fight fans should still expect a well-prepared and highly-motivated Stipe Miocic when the cage door shuts in two weeks.
“I’m excited, honestly,” Miocic said on “BS w/ Jake Paul.” “It’s finally here. It was supposed to happen last year, unfortunately an injury took it away, but here we are. We’re three weeks away. I’m ready, man. I’ve been pumped. I keep quiet. I focus on task at hand, just worry about my fight. That’s all I worry about.”
While Miocic may be dialed in and ready to make his return to action he’ll be doing so against the consensus greatest fighter of all time. Luckily for Miocic, Jones hasn’t logged much cage time either over the past few years. In fact, “Bones” has fought just once at heavyweight and only has two minutes of Octagon time since Feb. 2020. So even though Jones has all of the weapons to make it an easy night at UFC 309 it seems like Miocic believes he’ll be able to implement his own game plan from the opening bell.
“Jon Jones does a lot of things good, but I have great coaches, great teammates, and they make me prepared for whatever happens,” Miocic said. “I’m not going to wait for what he’s going to do, I’m going to do what I want to do.”
Miocic, who is coming off a crushing knockout loss to Francis Ngannou all the way back at UFC 260, has only lost twice over the last decade. They were both knockout defeats, but Miocic hasn’t shown much of a decline inside of the cage. So while most are calling for his retirement after his meeting with Jones later this month the former UFC champion is still on the fence.
“I don’t know,” said Miocic about his potential retirement. “I say it after every fight, I think about retiring. So, we’ll see. Right now, I’m just worried about the fight, and I can worry about that after it until it happens.”