Jones vs. Miocic: UFC 309 Picks and Predictions

UFC 309: Jones vs. Miocic Picks
When: Saturday, November 16, 2024
Where: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
TV: PPV

UFC 309 features a high-profile main event for the UFC Heavyweight Championship, with two of the sport’s luminaries duking it out as Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic do battle at Madison Square Garden. With Jon Jones, you have a man many consider to be the finest mixed martial arts competitor of all time, while Miocic is generally considered the most accomplished heavyweight in UFC history. Can Miocic climb back up the mountain, or will “Bones” add another notch to his belt? Let’s break it down!

Fight Analysis

Jon Jones, 27-1 (10 KOs, 7 Submissions), (-650) vs. Stipe Miocic, 20-4 (15 KOs), (+450)
Jon Jones makes the first defense of his UFC Heavyweight belt against former champion Stipe Miocic. There is a lot to unpack, with both fighters having a history that is so deep and with so many unusual factors at play. One of the more pertinent is that Miocic is now 42 years old, inactive since a March 2021 loss to Francis Ngannou when he was blasted into the deep beyond in the second round in a brutal finish. Jones, meanwhile, has his own issues on his plate and is now already 37, having fought a total of two times in this entire decade. Even with a nearly four-year layoff, Miocic has just as many fights in this decade as Jones.

You see these long odds in favor of Jones, and it speaks to certain things. That even with Jones having only his second heavyweight fight in a hail of inactivity, he’s still a runaway favorite against a man considered the best big man to ever fight in this organization. That seems to paint Miocic in a bad light. On one hand, his inactivity is mitigated by the fact that he’s facing one of the more active fighters in the whole world in Jones. In losing to Ngannou, he fell to the purest power-puncher to ever grace the octagon, a man he had actually previously defeated. And his list of wins over guys like Ngannou, Daniel Cormier, Junior dos Santos, Alistair Overeem, Fabricio Werdum, and many others makes him the most-esteemed of all big men.

It’s still fair to ask some tough questions as to Miocic’s viability as we come to the end of 2024. The fight business waits for no one, and when we see fighters whose expiration dates have long since passed, bad things can happen. There was a sense that when he fought Ngannou in the rematch, even before the horrifying result that, a long series of tough fights with a good run at the top had started showing on Miocic. And with how emphatic that ending was, the story for him to pack it in pretty much wrote itself. And for him to be in a big main event as we are almost in 2025 just seems out of place.

Dare I say Miocic is showing signs of a long career spent taking heavy blows to the head. It’s not distinct enough to warrant high levels of concern, perhaps, but it still makes one uneasy. Not that he was very loquacious in his younger years, as he is a softer-spoken man who prefers to rest on his actions and not his words. He still seems somehow diminished, now often behind glasses, just looking a little off. That might not be an accurate assessment and more of a vibe. Maybe I saw a few interviews after he had knocked back a few. But a picture starts to form on why the best big man ever is such a big underdog to a one-fight heavyweight with a lot of issues that seem exploitable.

At some point, maybe Jones’ flippancy shown in the second half of his career will manifest. He has been criminally inactive, with a poor track-record when it comes to personal and behavioral issues outside the arena of competition. It’s possible to look at his more-recent work and start reasoning a route to the conclusion that he’s been lucky—first to get some of those last decisions in his light heavyweight title reign, then to have his heavyweight debut and title shot not against Ngannou, but the less-dangerous Ciryl Gane. He certainly still looked the part with the quick stoppage of Gane and having still never been truly beaten, still carries that mystique. But there is astoundingly-little to go on in terms of recent showings to substantiate that this is still the same unassailable Jones we all know.

There being so little to go on with Jones at this weight doesn’t wash well when the guy in the opposite corner is a natural heavyweight accustomed to any kind of heavyweight fight. As far as carrying the new weight, Jones is unproven outside the Gane win. What happens when a fight gets into the later rounds? Will we see some of the same things that made the end of his light heavyweight reign so spotty? Are we taking one fight where he looked good and his overall career and letting that blind us from his inactivity and lack of dominance in fights against a lot less-threatening foes than even an aging Miocic?

Still, Jones isn’t an easy task. He’s still sharp, fast, and deadly. But, just maybe, Miocic’s inactivity isn’t such a bad thing and it refreshed him a bit. Heavyweights can age better than other fighters, and with his stand-up skills and boxing ability, he’s never more than a shot away from turning things in his favor. At the very least, Jones is now at a point in his career when taking a fighter as talented as Miocic at beefy underdog odds makes sense on a lot of levels. And just from a matchup and danger standpoint, I think there are a lot worse underdog stands to take than this one. I think Miocic is worth a tickle at the big number.

My Pick to Win: I’m betting on Stipe Miocic at +450 betting odds. Jones is the favorite, and rightfully so. I think the odds, however, perhaps overstate the gulf between the two. And even if Miocic at this stage is a dicey proposition on many levels, getting the best heavyweight ever at +450 against someone with so many questions, albeit a legend himself, is too juicy to pass up for at least a little taste.