Chael Sonnen believes Stipe Miocic has a couple of advantages over UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) challenges Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) in the UFC 309 main event Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Miocic, a former two-time UFC champ, is widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight of all time. But heading into his title fight vs. Jones, he is a big underdog.
Sonnen broke down certain aspects of the fight, starting with the grappling. Jones ran through Ciryl Gane for a first-round submission to capture the vacant heavyweight title at UFC 285, but Sonnen doubts Jones would be able to do the same to Miocic.
“Well, Stipe’s old, but not much older than Jon,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “I won’t argue with you if you tell me that Stipe is old by fighter standards, but I would argue if you told me Jon was young. Do you believe that Jon can just go take Stipe down whenever he wants?
“If you do believe that, now that’s something that Daniel Cormier couldn’t do. In one of the fights, there were two takedowns, and Stipe got them both. I’m just reminding you: Do you believe that Jon can come just take Stipe down?”
In terms of the striking, Sonnen said the much more longer-tenured heavyweight should have the advantage, too.
“Do you think Stipe is the guy who will jump out of that window? I’m talking about the window of quitting,” Sonnen said. “Do you think that’s going to happen to Stipe? If you don’t, we’re left back in the stand-up realm.
“Do you think that Jon Jones can knock out Stipe Miocic? And that is the one place where that size does actually come in, where the power actually comes in. It would move in Stipe’s favor. Am I wrong about that? Do you believe Jon is the better stand-up fighter?”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 309.