Jon Jones was one of the many notable names in attendance taking in the spectacle at the Sphere this past weekend at UFC 306, during which the current heavyweight champion’s next fight was officially announced as the UFC 309 main event scheduled to take place Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden.
It will be a title defence against former champion Stipe Miocic in what will serve as a legacy matchup for the pair. Jones was asked Saturday in an interview with X account ClockedNload how his preparation is going and what else his future might hold.
“I feel great. I feel really, really good, 250 pounds lean and strong,” Jones said.
When asked whether his upcoming fight with Miocic would be his “retirement fight,” Jones, 37, responded by saying: “It’s going to be the last time. More than likely.”
UFC president Dana White predicted in August that if Miocic were to beat Jones that Miocic would retire afterwards but added that if Jones won, then Jones would unify the titles in a fight with reigning interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.
Miocic, 42, is a former two-time heavyweight champ who last competed when he was viciously knocked out by Francis Ngannou at UFC 280 in March 2021.
Ngannou defended the title once via a one-sided decision over Cyril Gane — a fight for which Ngannou wasn’t 100 per cent — before eventually being stripped of the title following a contract dispute that resulted in him signing with PFL.
Jones, the former longtime light heavyweight champion and consensus greatest talent in mixed martial arts history, was originally slated to face Miocic at UFC 295 in New York last November but a pectoral injury resulted in Jones’s withdrawal. The UFC pivoted and booked Aspinall in an interim title bout against Sergei Pavlovich.
Aspinall won the vacant belt thanks to a first-round knockout and defended it with a one-minute stoppage of Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 in July. He then gave a respectful call-out to Jones, saying: “Hello, Jon. I have nothing against you personally, but I just think I’m better than you. I just know I can beat you in a fight, so I’m coming for it.”
Two middleweight bouts added to UFC 309
While the Jones vs. Miocic headliner and lightweight rematch between Charles Oliveira and Michael Chandler garnered much of the attneiton with this announcement, the UFC also announced two notable matchups in the 185-pound division.
Bo Nikal will face his most accomplished opponent to date in Scottish submission specialist Paul Craig. Nikal is 6-0 in MMA with his three latest victories coming under the UFC banner. He earned a submission win over Cody Brundage at UFC 300 in April. Craig has lost four of five and has been finished in three of his past four outings. However, he can never be counted out of a fight, with past stoppage victories over former UFC light heavyweight champions Jamahal Hill and Mauricio Rua plus a last-second submission of Magomed Ankalaev.
Former middleweight champion Chris Weidman will compete in his home state when he faces fellow longtime UFC competitor Eryk Anders. Both men are coming off March victories.
White said O’Malley looked ‘flat‘
Typically, if Sean O’Malley lands fewer than 50 total significant strikes, it means he has already finished his opponent. However, in his UFC 306 main event loss to Merab Dvalishvili, he landed only 47 over the course of the 25-minute contest and it had more to do with being overwhelmed by his opponent.
Dana White had some pointed criticism of the former champion’s performance when speaking with reporters following the event.
“He looked flat, he didn’t look sharp, he didn’t look crisp until the last round,” White said while referencing a fifth round that O’Malley won on all judges’ scorecards and during which he hurt Dvalishvili with a kick to the body.
O’Malley wrote on social media after his loss: “Over promised, under delivered. Sorry. Love you guys.”
Lopes could serve as official backup fighter for Topuria vs. Holloway
One fighter who did deliver at UFC 306 was Diego Lopes, who handily beat Brian Ortega. Lopes’s only loss in the UFC to date was a short-notice fight with unbeaten No. 6-ranked contender Movsar Evloev, who has an upcoming fight with Aljamain Sterling at UFC 307. The winner of that bout could be positioned to challenge for a title, but Lopes is also firmly in the picture.
When Dana White was asked if Lopes could potentially serve as backup fighter for October’s UFC 308 featherweight title fight between Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway, the UFC CEO responded: “I really like him, so yeah he could be.”
Lopes has won five in a row and just dominated the No. 3-ranked contender in the division.
“Usually he’s really nice, but tonight he was screaming at me, ‘Give me my title shot. I get the title shot now.’ He was very angry tonight,” White said. “He wasn’t the usual happy-go-lucky Diego Lopes. He was (expletive) screaming at me. He was fired up tonight.”
Chandler says he was offered Holloway at Sphere
Michael Chandler spoke with media in Las Vegas over the weekend and revealed the UFC proposed a fight between Chandler and current “BMF” titleholder Max Holloway before the organization ultimately went in a different direction.
As mentioned above, Holloway is set to headline UFC 308 later this year in an attempt to gain back the featherweight title he lost to Alexander Volkanovski in 2019.
Chandler had been expected to face Conor McGregor next (and it still could possibly happen in 2025), but Chandler decided to stop waiting and instead accepted a rematch with Charles Oliveira that’ll be on the same card as Jones vs. Miocic.
A future Chandler vs. Holloway meeting at lightweight has BMF title fight written all over it, though, and one would have to think that in the big picture that matchup is well within the realm of possibility.