KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Dana White has confirmed Jon Jones’ teases of his first UFC heavyweight title defense against Stipe Miocic will take place in his home state of New York.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) posted some tweets on social media during Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 44 event said he’s ready and waiting for a clash with Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) to be scheduled, and it could potentially go down at Madison Square Garden in New York this fall (via Twitter):
How cool would it be to spend my retirement fight dominating the greatest heavyweight of all time, in my home state at Madison Square Garden?
— BONY (@JonnyBones) April 16, 2023
How cool would it be to spend my retirement fight dominating the greatest heavyweight of all time, in my home state at Madison Square Garden?
The UFC makes an annual trip to the historic venue in November of each year, and White said that’s when the promotion wants it to happen.
“As far as I know everything is good and hopefully we have a fight with him and Stipe very soon,” White told MMA Junkie and other reporters at the UFC on ESPN 44 post-fight news conference. “That’s where we’d like to do it.”
White recently stirred some headlines when he said there hasn’t been much communication with Jones since he returned from a more than three-year layoff to claim the vacant title with a first-round submission of Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 in March.
The UFC president made sure to set the record straight as he was discussing Jones’ future.
“That was totally blown out of proportion,” White said. “This is what you guys do. I say something, you blow it way out of proportion. I said all the built up and lead up to that fight, all this Jon Jones (coverage), then poof, he’s just gone.’ Then I don’t know what Stipe said, then it turns into f*cking drama. There’s no drama here.
“So I guess Jon’s back, huh? He doesn’t disappear anymore. It’s so f*cking easy to create drama in this sport, it’s f*cking insane.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 44.
