Jon Jones will finally face Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 on November 16, says Dana White

There is light at the end of the tunnel for those still waiting for the Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic match.

The UFC heavyweight champion will face the former titleholder at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, Dana White told Complex. The UFC president declined to commit to what will happen after the fight, but did say he expects Jones to want to face his biggest challenger Tom Aspinall if he wins, rather than come out of retirement.

From Complex:

Simply put, the Jones-Miocic fight has been a long time coming, so much so that for some it has undermined the prestige of the UFC heavyweight title.

Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic Gets Second Date

Jones defeated Ciryl Gane to win the vacant belt in March 2023. He immediately challenged Miocic, who had lost the belt to Francis Ngannou two years earlier, and the fight was officially announced for November 11 at UFC 295 the following July. That fight went off the air in October, when it was revealed that Jones had torn his pectoral muscle, which required surgery. It took almost a year for the fight to be rescheduled.

Jones and Miocic have both fought once in the past four years and are now 37 and 42 years old, respectively. Gane is the only person among the UFC’s top five heavyweight contenders to have defeated either of them.

While all this was happening, Tom Aspinall was rocketing up those rankings and now holds the interim belt. Normally, an interim belt is a ticket to the next attempt at becoming champion, but White had Aspinall defend it against Curtis Blaydes. Aspinall is now ahead of Jones in several heavyweight rankings and has repeatedly prodded Jones to give him a shot instead of the aging Miocic.

White has stuck to the Jones-Miocic plan despite criticism, determined to pit what many consider the best MMA fighter of all time against the best UFC heavyweight of all time. Barring injuries, of course.

Speaking of waiting a really long time for a fight, UFC 309 will also see Michael Chandler face off against Charles Oliveira. It’s been nearly two years since Chandler last fought at UFC 281 in November 2022, with the fighter waiting all that time for a fight against Conor McGregor that similarly went up in smoke.