Jon Jones finally defends his heavyweight title this weekend when he faces Stipe Miocic in the main event of UFC 309. It’s a fight nearly two years in the making and could possibly be the last dance for both of the future Hall of Famers.

How can each man walk away Saturday as the champion and what are the most important parts of this long-awaited matchup? Let’s dive in.

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Paths to Victory for Jon Jones at UFC 309

What is there to say about Jon Jones that hasn’t already been said? Jones is universally agreed to be one of the greatest fighter of all time and the greatest light heavyweight ever. At his peak, Jones was a tour de force of imagination and execution, capable of seemingly anything inside of the cage.

In the early stages of his career, Jones was all creativity and violence; the rare kind of talent who fought like an action hero, except the stuff he did actually worked. As time went on and he got older, Jones then morphed from a chaotic dervish of destruction into a cerebral assassin who minimized risk with a sniping jab and his patented oblique kick to slowly diminish his opposition over 25 minutes. Then, Jones took three years off to move up to heavyweight and, in his return fight up a weight class, Jones showed a ruthless efficiency in going back to his grappling roots.

So which version of Jones will show up Saturday? All of them? None? In truth, we don’t really know.

Jones is probably the most talented fighter of all time but he’s also very likely declining (his transparent refusal to fight Tom Aspinall hints that Jones himself may be aware of this fact). He’s 37 and been fighting professionally for 16 years. That’s a lot of wear and tear on the body and given how rarely he’s fought in recent years, it is very hard to feel confident in what version of Jones shows up Saturday.

Fortunately, it probably doesn’t matter. If Jones wants to stay standing, Miocic can’t take him down, and his particular brand of out-fighting is well-suited against Miocic, who doesn’t have the best footwork and struggles to close range. On the other hand, perhaps Jones decides the safest course of action is to put Miocic on the mat where Miocic has never shown to be much of a threat. Miocic can wrestle but Jones is better there and should have enough horsepower to force the issue and pursue victory that way as well.

My best guess is that Jones does a bit of both, drawing Miocic in with a striking battle before changing levels and getting takedowns. Once on top, Jones is (well, was and may still be) a terrifying force of nature with elbows and ground-and-pound, so he should have the run of play in this scenario.

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Paths to victory for Stipe Miocic at UFC 309

For all the question marks around Jones in this fight, Stipe Miocic somehow has more. The two-time heavyweight champion is 42 years old, has not fought in over three years and hasn’t won a fight in over four years. He currently has no wins over fighters who compete in the UFC. There’s a reason people are entirely writing him off on Saturday.

Then again, being written off is sort of par for the course for Miocic. Even as he rose up the ranks and began putting together the most successful résumé ever for a UFC heavyweight, the Cleveland native never really felt like a generational champion. There was always a sense that Miocic was a placeholder until the next great heavyweight showed up. Except they never did and he kept going to work, punching in, and getting wins.

Well, he’s going to have to do the same on Saturday.

Again, we don’t really know what to expect from either guy but if we go by their most recent performances, Miocic has an uphill battle ahead of him. Jones is certainly the superior grappler and the better athlete. Also—and I mean this as respectfully as possible—Jones has a much better team. It took Miocic nearly two full fights with Daniel Cormier to realize he should attack the body, despite Jones putting that very thing on tape against him! It’s a fair bet that if either man comes into Saturday with some brilliant game plan, it’s probably Jones.

So where are Miocic’s advantages? On the feet. Don’t get me wrong, Jones is probably the better kickboxer of the two (and he’s vastly superior in the clinch because Jones is one of the greatest clinch fighters ever) but Jones is very beatable in a striking match.

The biggest weakness Jones has on the feet is he’s risk averse to the point of a problem. This is a guy who barely scraped out a win over Thiago Santos—who blew out both his knees during the fight—because he would not do anything for fear of getting hit back. Young Jon Jones would have obliterated Dominick Reyes, but Jones should have lost to Reyes primarily because Reyes took chances and Jones will not. So the biggest thing for Miocic is to simply adopt the Dricus du Plessis methodology of “eff it, I’ll keep throwing, eventually it’ll hurt him.”

Along those same lines, power is the one definitive edge Miocic has over Jones. Stipe is not a Francis Ngannou-level puncher, but he’s a darn good one and though Jones has shown a very good chin, he also clearly doesn’t want to get hit. Miocic needs to make this messy early and land some shots to put that reticence into Jones and make him clam up. The more comfortable Jones is in the cage, the worse it is for his opponents, and they way to make him uncomfortable is to hit him.

Finally, it’s never been a huge weapon in his arsenal, but I hope Miocic has been working on low kicks. Jones’s stance and spindly stems make him an ideal target for chopping the legs out from under him, limiting movement, scoring points, and taking away his explosion. Stipe needs to chop that wood to have any chance in this fight.

One Big Thing

The outcome of most high level fights depends on dozens of different things, but frankly, it’s a lot to list all of those out. Instead, let’s simplify things by determining the One Big Thing that will determine Saturday’s winner.

Does heavyweight matter?

This is Jones’s second fight at heavyweight and he’s reportedly smaller for this matchup than he was for the fight with Ciryl Gane. More importantly, Jones appears to have no interest in sticking around at heavyweight and continues to suggest he wants to fight dudes his size. Maybe that’s all a game, or maybe Jones really isn’t comfortable in this weight class. After all, the people who gave Jones the most difficult time in his career were simply the largest guys he fought (save Gane).

If Stipe comes out and puts mitts on Jones and he can’t take the shots the same as he did at 205 pounds, things get very interesting very quickly.

One Small Thing

Now we know the single most important factor of Saturday’s main event, but what about something else entirely that almost certainly won’t happen but if it does could change everything.

Are the MMA gods paying attention?

The buildup for this fight has been among the most frustrating to watch in years. A couple of month ago Jones was teasing he might fight Tom Aspinall after the Stipe fight. Then it turned into “I’m probably retiring.” Then in the last couple of weeks the Jones narrative shifted to “Actually I want to fight Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall doesn’t deserve it” and he admitted that Stipe is a good stylistic matchup for him coming off an injury.

This all culminated this week at Media Day where Jones entirely dismissed Aspinall as an opponent, said he only wants to fight fun matchups with “guys my size” despite being heavyweight champion, stated outright that beating Ciryl Gane was meaningless, and then issued an ultimatum of “either it’s Pereira or I retire.” It’s an astonishingly shameless admission that Jones is not looking for challenges, he’s looking for easy paydays. Jones is in his Floyd Mayweather era and for whatever reason the UFC is going along with it.

But the MMA gods are not so pliable.

It would truly be the funniest thing in the history of this sport if Jones went through all of this ridiculousness and then ultimately got knocked out by the 42-year-old firefighter who hasn’t fought since 2021. And he is certainly giving the MMA gods plenty of reasons to make it so.

Prediction

Perhaps you could tell from everything above, but I don’t think much of this fight. Even if you could take a time machine and pluck the perfect versions of themselves, I don’t think Miocic has much to offer Jones in a fight, and this is far from that. Jones is still somewhat near his peak while Miocic is well beyond it, and I suspect he gets rolled up in short order.

Jon Jones def. Stipe Miocic via TKO (12-6 elbows) — Round 1, 3:41

Aljamain Sterling believes Umar Nurmagomedov needs to earn his stripes.

Nurmagomedov (18-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC), cousin of former undefeated UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, was declared No. 1 contender after defeating Cory Sandhagen in the UFC on ABC 7 main event this past August. Sandhagen marked Nurmagomedov’s first ranked opponent.

Sterling’s training partner, UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili (18-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC), is having a hard time acknowledging Nurmagomedov as his next title challenger. Dvalishvili says he’s been fast tracked, and Sterling thinks that’s largely in part due to being Khabib’s cousin.

“I’m not saying he’s not good,” Sterling said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “I love Umar. I think Umar is a great guy, but facts are the facts. I don’t care what your cousin has done. That does not have any bearing on what you have done for the sport. You’ve got to cut your teeth in this game, not riding the coattails of your family’s merit.

“I always say if I have kids, I want to make sure they’re not riding off the coattails of what I do or have done in my life. I want to make sure they’re out there, they’re being go-getters. I think anyone with any type of real self-worth would want to do that, earn their keep. You don’t want to be feeling like the person who’s just here because you were handed an invite vs. actually earning to be at the table. Earn your seat at the table.”

Dvalishvili had to win 10 fights in a row before earning his shot at the title. He dethroned Sean O’Malley to claim the bantamweight title at UFC 306, and despite telling MMA Junkie that he’d be willing to rematch O’Malley in November over Nurmagomedov, “The Machine” clarified that he’ll end up fighting whoever the UFC offers.

Nurmagomedov is eager to fight before Ramadan, which is expected to start at end of February. If Dvalishvili isn’t ready by then, Nurmagomedov is willing to fight once more, and has been linked to a potential matchup with Song Yadong at UFC 311 on Jan. 18.

The UFC 309 press conference features the entire main card from Saturday’s pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden in New York.

UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones, two-time heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, and lightweight contenders Charles Oliveira and Michael Chandler are some of the stars that will answer questions from the media Thursday evening.

Watch a live stream video of the UFC 309 press conference above. The event is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET.

Video Details

Jon Jones doesn’t want to hear anymore Tom Aspinall questions.

On Wednesday, Jones refused to sit down with TNT Sports reporter Adam Catterall in anticipation of receiving more questions about the UFC interim champion, who is on friendly terms with Catterall. Jones defends his heavyweight title against Stipe Miocic this Saturday at UFC 309 in New York and in the build-up to the event he has frequently been asked whether he plans to meet Aspinall in the future to unify their belts.

Watch a clip of Jones making a quick exit from the interview room below (h/t Championship Rounds):

“Hey, I’m not going to do this interview,” Jones said after initially greeting Catterall. “No, because it’s going to be an Aspinall-fest.”

Jones is later seen speaking to Catterall in the lobby, telling him it was “nothing personal” but “I see how close you [and Aspinall] are common sense tells me what type of questions I was going to get asked.”

Catterall tells Jones, “You’re entitled to it. Speak to who you want to.”

Shortly after, Jones re-entered the interview room for an interview with Nick Peet of TNT Sports. Jones is not asked any questions about Aspinall in the video, which can be seen below.

Jones is widely hailed as one of the greatest fighters of all time, primarily based on his work in the UFC light heavyweight division where he went undefeated for a decade (outside of a controversial disqualification loss to Matt Hamill), recorded numerous title defenses, and defeated a long list of legends and future UFC Hall of Famers. In March 2023, Jones defeated Ciryl Gane to capture a vacant heavyweight title.

Miocic was to challenge Jones at UFC 295 the following December, but a pectoral injury forced Jones out of the matchup and out of action for several months. In their absence, Aspinall defeated Sergei Pavlovich to claim an interim title.

With the Jones-Miocic matchup pushed back a year, Aspinall successfully defended his title with a win over Curtis Blaydes this past July. Since winning the interim belt, he has campaigned for a fight with Jones, but Jones has repeatedly said he has no interest in fighting Aspinall.

Aspinall is set to weigh in as the backup for Saturday’s main event and has said he hopes to convince either Jones or Miocic to stick around to face him regardless of who is victorious.

NEW YORK – It’s not like the UFC’s women’s flyweight division is just overflowing with fighters, so a Viviane Araujo stat this week might be an anomaly.

Still, the fact remains: For the fourth straight fight, Araujo (12-6 MMA, 6-5 UFC), from Brazil, will step into the cage against another Brazilian. This time, it’ll be Karine Silva (18-4 MMA, 4-0 UFC) at UFC 309 (pay-per-view, ESPNews/Hulu/FX, ESPN+) on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York.

It’s been a mixed bag of results for the 37-year-old Araujo in that run, which includes decision losses to Amanda Ribas and Natalia Silva, the latter of which came in February, and a win over former title challenger Jennifer Maia.

And while she’d like to fight someone not from Brazil, she knows it means women’s 125-pounders in the UFC are making her homeland proud.

“(I’d like to fight) somebody from another nationality, but it only show shows the worth of female MMA in Brazil,” Araujo said Wednesday at a media day for UFC 309. “It shows the work that we put in, and (the matchups against Brazilians are) just a result of that.”

When Araujo arrived in the UFC in 2019, she delivered a third-round knockout against Talita Bernardo – a Brazilian; go figure. But since then, it’s been 10 straight 15-minute fights and a middling 5-5 record of all decisions.

Araujo said she’s battled recent injuries and surgeries, but now has recovered, and has the added inspiration on the home front of her wife getting ready to give birth. She thinks Silva might want the fight on the canvas with her, but also said she’s ready no matter where the near 3-1 favorite wants to play things.

“You can’t forget that I’m a jiu-jitsu black belt. I think she should be wary before coming down to the ground. But I’m ready to strike with her and believe it’s going to be some heavy artillery coming at her.”

Check out Araujo’s full interview in the video above.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 309.