Stipe Miocic on accusations of holding up heavyweight division: "I don’t care, do what you want and stop crying"
Former UFC heavyweight world champion Stipe Miocic recently sat down with MMA journalist Shakiel Mahjouri to address a few issues in his career, particularly his seemingly "holding up" the UFC heavyweight division by waiting for the Jon Jones fight.
Miocic was supposed to fight Jon Jones at UFC 295 last year but the bout was scrapped after the heavyweight champ suffered a pectoral tear during fight camp.
Currently, the UFC has an interim heavyweight champ, Tom Aspinall, who is also waiting to fight someone for the undisputed crown. With the undisputed king Jon Jones on the sidelines, pressure is on Miocic to skip 'Bones' and fight Aspinall.
When asked what he thinks of Aspinall's situation, being stuck and waiting, Stipe Miocic said:
"I get it. I mean, I'd feel the same way, I'm not taking anything away from him [Aspinall]. The UFC can do what they want. It is what it is. There's only one guy I want to fight and that's Jon Jones but at the same time, the UFC can pick who they want to fight. Everyone knows that there were a couple of times when I was ready to fight him [Aspinall] but they gave it to another guy. I mean, what am I supposed to do, you know? I’m not holding up any division like everyone says. I don’t care, do what you want and stop crying."
Polite as ever, Stipe Miocic corrected his last sentence by saying:
"I'm not saying he's [Aspinall's] crying, but [I meant] fans and stuff like that."
Watch the interaction here as posted by Championship Rounds on X:
Jon Jones looking at "crazy" options after Stipe Miocic fight
In light of UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira's sensational defense of his belt at UFC 303 last weekend, talks started to circulate about him moving up to heavyweight to challenge Jon Jones. If ever he does face 'Bones' and wins, 'Poatan' would make history by becoming the first and only three-division UFC world champion.
With this in mind, fans are wondering what are Jones' plans now that a new challenger might be emerging. A fan who goes by @SS_mma on X asked the heavyweight kingpin:
"You retiring after stipe?"
Jones responded by saying:
"Honestly, it's hard to say right now, I'm gonna base a lot of that on my next performance. The options are looking crazy right now."
Here's a post of the interaction uploaded by MMA Orbit on X: