Preview: UFC 309 ‘Jones vs. Miocic’

The time has come for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s annual visit to Madison Square Garden this Saturday in New York, and while UFC 309 might not be as deep as some previous iterations, plenty of intrigue can be found at the top of the lineup. Jon Jones returns to action and defends his heavyweight title for the first time, which makes for an interesting fight on its own, and while most of the discussion around the main event has centered on what’s next for the all-time great, former heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic could present a difficult challenge in his own return from a three and a half-year layoff. Meanwhile, Charles Oliveira and Michael Chandler run back their 2021 lightweight title bout in a co-headlining rematch that should once again combine action and high stakes. Surprisingly, the rest of the main card looks to be a prospect showcase. The UFC has given promotional favorites Bo Nickal and Mauricio Ruffy opportunities to impress on a big stage, and the hope seems to be that Karine Silva can announce herself as a women’s flyweight contender against divisional stalwart Viviane Araujo.

Now to the UFC 309 “Jones vs. Miocic” preview:

UFC Heavyweight Championship

#3 P4P | Jon Jones (27-1, 21-1 UFC) vs. #8 HW | Stipe Miocic (20-4, 14-4 UFC)

ODDS: Jones (-650), Miocic (+470)

UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic. Saturday at 10 ET on ESPN+. Order Now!
The atmosphere around this fight is one of the strangest in recent memory, somehow serving as both a legacy bout and a complete afterthought. Taking out all of the surrounding context, it’s just nice that it’s a fight week involving Jones. Controversial disqualification loss to Matt Hamill aside, Jones put together a resume as a light heavyweight that clearly marks him as an all-time great, starting with a rise as remarkably clean as there has been in the history of the sport. He took apart Mauricio Rua to become the UFC’s youngest-ever champion in March 2011, and it honestly felt like the UFC could have rushed Jones to the spot a year or two sooner. After clearing out a lot of the old guard in one-sided and dynamic fashion over the next two years, Jones got the first tough challenge of his career in a 2013 title defense against Alexander Gustafsson, which wound up as a hard-fought decision. That served as an omen for a lot of things that would come to mark the next decade or so of Jones’ career. He would settle into becoming a five-round decision-focused fighter inside of the cage, and the talk that Jones spent a lot of his time partying rather than taking Gustafsson seriously seemed to be a turning point when it comes to his eventual outside-of-the-cage issues. A slow-cooking of Glover Teixeira in 2014 led into the defining rivalry of Jones’ career against Daniel Cormier, which marked a shift in public perception from “Bones” as the clean-cut face of the promotion to a deeper and a more duplicitous star, though when it came to their fights inside the cage, he was clearly the better man and won their first fight via clear decision. After that, Jones’ problems outside the cage became his problems inside the cage, as the next four years or so were defined by various controversies bleeding into his career. A slated title defense against Anthony Johnson was scrapped after Jones was arrested due to his involvement in a hit-and-run, in turn forcing him to vacate his belt. After returning a year later to win an interim title against Ovince St. Preux—who stepped in for an injured Cormier—a “DC” rematch was scuttled thanks to a failed drug test from Jones, who claimed to have ingested tainted “gas station dick pills.” A rematch eventually happened a year later, which resulted in a Jones victory to regain his title—until he failed a post-fight drug test, which led to the result being overturned and Cormier being reinstated as champion. Once Cormier eventually moved to heavyweight and vacated the title, Jones stepped in against Gustafsson a year and a half later to win the vacant belt, though not before the UFC moved the entire card from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on about a week’s notice due to concerns about Nevada’s more stringent drug testing standards. Once 2019 rolled around, Jones’ career had a bit of normalcy, even if his fights themselves weren’t exactly inspiring. Jones had settled into a sound but patient style that gave opponents enough time and space to throw out offense and keep things competitive, so decision wins over Thiago Santos and Dominick Reyes were closer than they needed to be and easily could have gone the other way. Jones would eventually vacate the belt a few months after the win over Reyes and announce his intention to compete at heavyweight, which entered running joke status after an extended absence. There was more talk than action until Jones eventually signed on to face Ciryl Gane for the vacant heavyweight belt three years after defeating Reyes. To his credit, the heavyweight version of Jones appeared to be worth the wait. Gane had a poor performance, but the main takeaway was that Jones looked rejuvenated, fighting a more aggressive style than he had in years and quickly getting to his wrestling, after which the Frenchman had few answers before getting submitted. After all the excitement that result generated, the follow-up has been a disappointment. The UFC quickly targeted a fight between Jones and Miocic, who had been inactive since losing the heavyweight title to Francis Ngannou two and a half years prior; a Jones pectoral injury scrapped those plans. Rather than keep things moving, the UFC decided to wait a year to have the fight at Madison Square Garden, where both men are one year older and Jones is teasing retirement after this fight.

Miocic’s decade-long UFC resume has little relevance today—somehow, none of his opponents are currently on the UFC roster—but still ranks among the best in the promotion’s history in terms of success at heavyweight. Miocic made his UFC debut in 2011 while still on the right side of 30 and quickly established himself as a prospect to watch thanks to his combination of deft power punching and solid wrestling. From there, Miocic had a solid if unremarkable rise, clearly rounding into a contender while not being a Jones-level prodigy, as he suffered tough losses to Stefan Struve and Junior dos Santos on his way up the ladder. After an extended beating of Mark Hunt and a quick finish of Andrei Arlovski, Miocic was clearly ready for his moment by 2016 and cashed in on the opportunity, knocking out Fabricio Werdum in the Brazilian’s hometown to end UFC 198 as the new heavyweight champion. Miocic then had his own big hometown moment a few months later, successfully defending his title against Alistair Overeem in Cleveland, which felt like the high-water mark in terms of his star power as a champion. Miocic isn’t exactly the most dynamic personality, so it was amusing to watch the UFC pivot to more obviously marketable fighters such as Ngannou, even as he racked up the most heavyweight title defenses in UFC history. Miocic would eventually lose his title to Cormier but sweep the rest of what wound up as a title trilogy—a series that was both a fun meeting of two all-time greats and a showcase for how thin the margins can be for heavyweights at times. As an example, Miocic won back his title with the fairly simple adjustment of deciding to punch Cormier in the body rather than the head. Once the Cormier trilogy was complete, Miocic was knocked out by Ngannou in 2021—an understandable result—and then went radio silent from there, seemingly content with semi-retirement until the UFC came calling with the Jones fight. If nothing else, as long as Miocic is in something approaching peak form at 42 years old, he does present some unique challenges compared to Jones’ previous opposition. Thanks to his heavyweight-level power, he has a case as the hardest hitter Jones has ever faced, and unlike Gane, he’s a credible wrestler that should at least provide some resistance if the current champion goes that route. That could cause some problems if Jones reverts to the same cautious form that marked a lot of his later days at light heavyweight, but given his last performance, he should be able to find some success as a bully even if this isn’t quite the walkover that his heavyweight debut turned out to be. The pick is Jones via second-round submission.

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Jones vs. Miocic
Oliveira vs. Chandler
Nickal vs. Craig
Silva vs. Araujo
Ruffy vs. Llontop
Prelims: McGhee vs. Martinez