Jones accuses Miocic of ducking him, thinks they won’t fight in July

Jon Jones fired the first salvo in the rhetoric leading up to a monster heavyweight title fight with Stipe Miocic.

Even with three years out of the cage, any big fight fan knows that Jon Jones likes to play head games with his opponents leading up to fights. The newly-crowned UFC heavyweight champion “may” be wiser as he has gotten older, but the tactics haven’t changed. And he showed that today, getting some trash talk in regarding his probable UFC 290 opponent, Stipe Miocic.

Jones took to social media to imply that Miocic has ducked him the past, and might not be actually willing to throw down in July:

“Yo @stipemiocic only you the UFC and I know the truth, you dodged me all of 2022 – July, September & December,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “Now I’m hearing rumors that we may not be fighting this July.”

“Bro it’s simple, either you believe in yourself or you don’t,” he wrote. “Either you want this challenge or you don’t. Stop wasting everyone’s time.”

It’s kind of funny that a guy that stayed out of the cage forever and was rumored to be ducking Francis Ngannou would put out this kind of statement, but here we are. It’s Jon Jones, after all.

MMA Fighting was given a response from a member of Stipe’s camp who requested anonymity, saying that the heavyweight GOAT is “100% in” for July.

Unless someone gets hurt, this fight is almost surely going down on July 8th. Stay tuned.