Anthony Smith thinks Jon Jones facing Stipe Miocic in his heavyweight debut would be hell of a fight.
“Bones” hasn’t competed since retaining his 205-pound title against Dominick Reyes in February 2020.
“Ciryl Gane loses and then now, all of a sudden, he wants to fight. It’s like he waited for this huge bubble that’s been growing for him to fight to burst because now, like – I love Stipe; I just don’t think that’s as big of a fight as he could have had in the heavyweight division. It’s very smart of him because it’s the best matchup for him, likely. I would say that Stipe is, out of the top three or four guys in the division, Stipe is the easiest fight for him. I’m not saying he’s easy. I’m saying it’s the easiest matchup.”
Smith explains that while he respects Miocic, he doesn’t see him as the best possible test for Jones’ divisional debut.
“Stipe is barely a heavyweight,” Smith said. “I weigh more than Stipe does right now. He’s like low 230s. He’s gotten super lean over his last three fights, and me and Stipe have the same manager and I tell Lloyd (Pierson) constantly, you need to tell Stipe he needs to go to 205. Not that I want to deal with that Goddamn problem, but Jan (Blachowicz) probably outweighs Stipe by 10 pounds right now.”
“It’s just, we want Jon at heavyweight, and we want to see how he does at heavyweight then we get him there and he’s essentially fighting a 205er that doesn’t want to cut weight. I don’t think it’s a real assessment of what we’re gonna get. I guess we get to see how Jon moves around and how he’s carrying the weight and if he’s lost a step because he hasn’t been fighting, some ring rust. There is a lot of things we’ll learn from it. I would just like to see him vs., like, a real heavyweight – like a real large one.”
