Israel Adesanya expects Jon Jones to make it look easy against Stipe Miocic.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) makes his first heavyweight title defense against Stipe Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 309 (pay-per-view, ESPNews/Hulu/FX, ESPN+) main event at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Jones’ heavyweight debut was impressive. He needed just over two minutes to submit Ciryl Gane and claim the vacant title at UFC 285. Adesanya admits he didn’t expect Jones to run through Gane like that.
“Jon Jones lately looks better at heavyweight already,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “He has been taking it seriously, and the way he fights, the Ciryl Gane fight was the one that made me go, ‘He’s the best,’ because I thought Ciryl Gane was going to give him some trouble.
“Ciryl was the new-age heavyweight, and Jon’s like, ‘Hold my beer.’ He just sneakily, none of us knew, even ‘DC’ was like, ‘What did he catch him with?’ It was a sneaky front choke. The guy is just crafty, creative at what he does.”
Miocic is a former two-time UFC heavyweight champion, but hasn’t competed since losing his belt to Francis Ngannou by knockout in March 2021. Despite being high on Miocic’s ability, Adesanya thinks Jones will be too much for him.
“Stipe is tough,” Adesanya continued. “He can outwork a lot of heavyweights, we’ve seen what he’s done in the past. We’ve seen his reign as a heavyweight, he’s knocked people out, submitted people. But this fight, I think he’s up against it. I’m going to pick Jon Jones. First two rounds, he’s going to finish him.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 309.
