UFC 309 picks and predictions: Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic

See who we think will win at MSG this weekend.

The UFC rolls into Madison Square Garden this weekend with a blockbuster of a card. Disputed UFC Heavyweight champion Jon Jones is set to defend his belt against his hand-picked title challenger (Stipe Miocic) in what might be Bones’ last ever fight. The co-main is certified violence with Charles Oliveira meeting Michael Chandler for a second time.

The main card also has a Bo Nickal appearance. He’s a massive favorite against Paul Craig. Brazilian KO artist Mauricio Ruffy gets a chance to shine on the main card, too. He’s drawn James Llontop.

The prelims have some good name value this time around, too. There’s Chris Weidman vs. Eryk Anders, Jim Miller vs. Damon Jackson and Marcin Tybura vs. Jhonata Diniz.

We’ve looked over all these match-ups and decided who we think will win them. You can see all those picks, and some of our analysis, below.

If you’re using this information for betting, please do so responsibily. And please win!

---

---

Jon Jones (-725) vs. Stipe Miocic (+450)

Miguel Class: This is a fight that would've been incredibly interesting if it happened in 2017 or 2018, but now we’re getting a fight that is much more defined by the intangibles of age and ring rust than the actual technical details. Both of these fighters are far removed from the best versions of themselves and have been incredibly inactive. We haven’t seen enough of Jones at heavyweight to be confident of his ability to compete well in the division, but that’s still better than not seeing Stipe at all for almost 4 years. 

In his prime, Stipe could have troubled Jones with his solid boxing fundamentals and competent wrestling. Jones has always been subpar in the pocket, but in his prime he made up for that by being one of the best clinch fighters we’ve seen in the heavier divisions. That meant that he could pick away at people with a diverse array of long range strikes and then punish opponents with elbows when they closed the distance. Stipe has always been aimless with his cagecraft though and he would’ve needed to pressure Jones much like DC did in the second fight to try to stick him in boxing range where his footwork and defense are at their worst. And even if he did pressure, he’d have to shuck off the clinch regularly while defending Jones’s crafty takedowns.

None of that really matters for this matchup though. I don’t think Jones’s ranged striking game is still there, his wrestling looked abysmal in his fights with Reyes and Santos, and I don’t even remember the last time we saw him look good in the clinch. But Stipe looked completely flat in his most recent fight against Francis Ngannou and his three fights with DC were hardly encouraging. Getting knocked out by DC during a clinch break was super concerning, but the extent to which he struggled with the janky boxing of DC in the second and third fights might be an even worse look. The fact that it took him 3.5 rounds in the second fight to figure out DC’s vulnerabilities to body shots doesn’t speak well of his team’s ability to do tape study.