Jon Jones calls out Stipe Miocic for avoiding fight between the two

A Jones vs. Miocic heavyweight title fight has been reportedly in the works for UFC 290 on July 8 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. MMAFighting.com reported that someone close to Miocic told them the 40-year-old is “100 percent in” for the grudge match with Jones.

Miocic and Jones have been rumored to fight for years but nothing ever came of it. After Jones’ two-minute and four-second dismantling of Ciryl Gane in the UFC 285 main event in which he won the vacant heavyweight title, UFC president Dana White confirmed the fight that’s been years in the making was finally going to happen.

“Here’s the thing that makes this so awesome, you have the greatest mixed martial artist of all-time facing the greatest heavyweight of all-time,” White recently told TMZ Sports. “It literally doesn’t get any better than that. These are the kinds of fights you dream about making.”

Miocic hasn’t fought since a second-round knockout loss to former champion Francis Ngannou in March of 2021. Prior to that, he’d won eight of his previous nine fights, including five heavyweight title defenses against Ngannou, Junior Dos Santos, Alistair Overeem and two against Daniel Cormier.

The 35-year-old Jones is unbeaten in his last 19 fights, and his only pro loss came in 2009 via disqualification due to illegal elbows. Jones only has one fight at heavyweight, but he won all 11 of his title defenses at light heavyweight and he’s 15-0-1 in title fights.