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UFC champion Jon Jones is poised to defend his heavyweight title belt for the very first time. In his recently adopted weight category, Jones claimed the gold in his inaugural bout by submitting Ciryl Gane in the first round. Following his relinquishment of the light heavyweight title in 2020, this triumph stands as his sole appearance in the Octagon.

The deal could’ve been made obvious in the process, where Curtis Blaydes, the number one contender, potentially got blown out of the water by the Russian phenom Sergei Pavlovich in April. Has Francis Ngannou finally signed with PFL in May, resulting in negotiations with UFC falling apart completely? The big question was: Who would Jon Jones face next since his victory months ago?

Dana White announces Stipe Miocic vs. Jon Jones

In 2021, Ngannou was determined to win the gold once again in the cage foot setting. He had made it clear that he was only focused on becoming the champion and earning money through UFC, reducing his public disputes. Miocic, a former multiple-time heavyweight champion like Jones, has been relatively inactive lately, similar to himself.

Unfortunately, the 40-year-old professional fighter, who has spent the last two years waiting patiently for the right opportunity, finally has the chance to present himself alongside the champion Jones, but it seems that Ngannou is missing out on this perfect opportunity that fans have been eagerly anticipating.

On Saturday, November 11th, Dana White announced in a press video that the UFC 295 headline event will take place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In this event, the former heavyweight champion, Stipe Miocic, will defend his title against Jon Jones, the greatest mixed martial artist of all time and the current heavyweight champion.

I will see you fighting at the fights, and now you should make your plans. It’s done, it’s official. It’s the legacy fight for both of these guys. Stipe wanted that fight, and Jon Jones wanted the fight.

There were doubts

Despite the obviousness of the booking, there were still a lot of questions as to whether the fight between former UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic would actually come back together in May. Both men seemed interested in the fight, and it was clear that Jones had slipped and let Stipe fallen apart.

Cormier explained that this is a big fight, and if we’re not careful, we might miss out on another opportunity. We have Jones Jon and Miocic Stipe, guys, who we’re going to fight against. I’m gone and I can see that something is happening in a different way. Humans have short attention spans, so we need to make sure this future fight doesn’t doubt us. The reason for this sudden shift is because the town was talking about Jones Jon and Ngannou Francis and what exactly happened.

I don’t know what’s currently happening on the backend, but for the sake of the heavyweight, we need to come together, even if it’s just a small amount of time or less than that. However, we cannot afford to allow Jones to be missing again, can we?

Fortunately, instead of the expected November booking, it looks like the longtime clash between Pavlovich and Jones/Jon is being pursued by the UFC for August. Chael Sonnen only added fuel to the fire by suggesting that he had heard rumors of this.

UFC 295 finally set

Since 2016, the UFC has been organizing a promotional event called PPV in Garden Square Madison every November, with the exception of the abridged 2020’s schedule due to COVID. This event serves as a confirmation of the long-anticipated announcement of a new heavyweight title fight, along with the expected confirmation of UFC’s 14th PPV event.

In New York, the UFC will rely on him to lead their November PPV event, considering Jones’ connections to the region. Additionally, no other fights have been announced for the occasion thus far.

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Zane Simon

Simon Zane, a senior editor and writer for Bloody Elbow, is responsible for maintaining and developing the current list of UFC fighters. Originally developed as a resource on Wikipedia in 2010, Zane has also taken on the role of a podcast host for the long-running MMA podcast Vivisection, which he took over from Winston Dallas & Wilcox Nate in 2015. Zane has trained in both Muay Thai and boxing and has worked with the website since 2013, taking on a wide variety of roles in the lifelong combat sports fan community.

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