Video footage of the UFC heavyweight champion shows him taping up an old injury while working the mitts with his trainer.
Is Jon Jones injured coming into his UFC 309 heavyweight title fight against Stipe Miocic in Madison Square Garden?
After storming through Ciryl Gane to capture the vacant title in March 2023, Jones was supposed to defend against Miocic at UFC 295 — last year’s big New York City card. A torn pectoral muscle took the GOAT contender out of circulation for several months, but he’s been training hard at the gym lately in preparation for this long-awaited bout.
Perhaps a little too hard?
New footage posted to Jones’ Instagram shows “Bones” working the mitts with his coach, and on his left foot is some tape wrapped around his big toe and second toe. Those of you who are as ancient as the sands may remember Jones’ fight against Chael Sonnen in 2013 — Jon earned a first round finish over Chael with 27 seconds left in the round, which was fortunate because the bone in Jones’ big toe spontaneously snapped off and was hanging by a thread of flesh.
Sonnen may have won via TKO/Injury and UFC would have had two fights to try and overturn instead of one. None of that happened though … just the injury, on the same toe that Jones has taped up now.
That time Jon Jones didn’t realize his toe split in half until after the decision pic.twitter.com/AWw4rUAz69
— Kenny B (@KennyBalii) September 26, 2022
We don’t want to be superstitious, but it has not been a good year for fighter toes. Conor McGregor withdrew from his UFC 303 fight in June over a broken pinky toe, and then Belal Muhammad was forced out of UFC 310 with a bone infection in his toe.
We doubt Jones will withdraw from his fight, which is set to net him eight figures. But we will be watching his movement early in the fight, and if his toe falls off the bone halfway through the bout like a slow cooked short rib? We’d be surprised … but not totally surprised.