Fight Coverage
Coach Conversation | UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic
Eric Nicksick Breaks Down Saturday’s Heavyweight Title Clash Between Jon Jones And Stipe Miocic
Ahead of every championship fight, UFC staff writer E. Spencer Kyte sits down with one the sharpest coaching minds in the sport to break down the action and provide UFC fans with insights into each championship pairing from the men that spend their days getting these elite athletes prepared to compete on the biggest stage in the sport.
As Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic get set to face off with the heavyweight championship hanging in the balance this weekend, Kyte caught up with Xtreme Couture leader Eric Nicksick to break down the matchup between the current and former champion on four key points of interest.
Best Trait of Each Fighter
Order UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic
Kyte: All right — what’s the best trait of each of these guys?
Nicksick: For Jon, obviously, I think it’s his Fight IQ — that’s definitely gonna be No. 1, but the way that he’s able to apply different arts to the game plan; I think that’s what makes him the most intriguing fighter ever. He can beat you in any facet of the game and do it very, very well.
He has an ego about him too, where if you watch the Cormier fight — ‘“Oh, you’re the best wrestler? Okay, I’ll take your *** down. Gustafsson, you’re the best striker? I’m gonna out-strike you.” There is an edge and an aura to him where he likes to beat his opponent at their best attribute, and that’s what makes him freakin’ amazing.
I think in this particular fight, I think the attribute for him is his length — keeping this fight long and at a pace that favors him. I think he’s the ultimate puppet master in the way that he fights — he gets you into his style of fight, he controls that pace, and that’s where I think a lot of guys have problems with him because they get snake-charmed.
State of the Heavyweight Division | November 2024
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State of the Heavyweight Division | November 2024
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Kyte: When you mention the ego part, the thing that triggered in my head is that it goes beyond ‘I’m gonna beat you at your style’ to ‘I don’t even have to really prepare that hard’ in some of these instances.
Nicksick: Right!
Kyte: That is next-level confidence — can’t be faked, can’t be bought, and hasn’t bitten him in the *** yet. He’s come close a couple times, but it hasn’t really fully cost him yet; that’s how good this dude is.
Read: Fight By Fight Preview | UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic
Nicksick: It’s in his creativity too that you see how good he is because you don’t get to train a lot of that. You don’t get to prepare for a spinning back elbow off a right cross. That’s natural instinct like Saquon Barkley jumping over a guy; you look at it and go, ‘That’s the level of creativity in his mind that he’s doing that,’ and you can’t train for that, you can’t prepare for that.
It’s a little like Mansur (Abdul-Malik) this weekend, he was talking a lot about hitting set combinations, and I was like, “Don’t fall in love with set combinations, because your vision and creativity are so important that once you see something, just act on instinct,” and that’s what Jon has, better than anyone, I think.
Kyte: I agree. What about Stipe?
Nicksick: His best traits are his boxing, his toughness, his durability and his heart, all those things, but as someone that had to game-plan for the guy — when you and I were talking about this fight last week, I was looking at some stuff, and it brought back an anxiety like I was going back and preparing for Stipe again.
If you look at the trilogy with Cormier, Stipe looked better in every fight and got better in every fight. He was winning the first fight until he wasn’t, he was losing the second fight until he wasn’t, and then the third fight was a complete wash, but in that third fight, I saw so many different technical evolutions from him in that time.
A lot of switch stances, a lot of lateral movement, a lot of shake steps — things that I think are more predicated to lighter weight fighters, and he was implementing these things and very much confused Cormier. So I also think it’s his evolution, and that’s a big question: how has he evolved these last three years? What has he been doing?
Read: Stipe Miocic Career Highlights
I have to assume that he’s only gotten better. With the type of personality and champion that he is, (I have to assume) that he’s been working, doing new things.
Kyte: One of the things for me when I think about him is that he doesn’t care about a lot of this. He’s the last dude that is ever going to get caught up in (the glitz and hype) of this stuff.
This is a dude that wants to turn up, do his job, prove a bunch of people wrong — because I think he enjoys being counted out — and none of the secondary stuff bothers him. We’re all sitting here expecting to move on from him, and he’s like, “Cool — I’m gonna beat Jon Jones.”
Stipe Miocic | The Baddest Firefighter On The Planet
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Stipe Miocic | The Baddest Firefighter On The Planet
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I think that’s one of his best traits. None of the trappings of any of this gets to him. He’s been champ twice, been in the spotlight for 10 years, and at no point has he been a different dude and any different than exactly who he has always been.
Nicksick: Yeah — he’s the same guy.
Kyte: You mention the evolution thing, but I think we all look at it and go, “Man, he’s been off for three years” and view it as this big negative, big time off, but it could also be that he’s been off for three years, so he’s healthier, more rested, improved a few different things because he’s had 18 months to study for Jon Jones.
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Nicksick: If not longer. I think Strong Style has a strong style about them — they’re gritty, well-prepared, and they’re f*****’ tough.
Path to Victory for Each Fighter
Kyte: Everyone would love a 10-second knockout or a quick submission, but that’s not often how these things go, especially not at the championship level. Instead, it’s usually the competitor that has crafted the better game plan and did the better job of executing things inside the Octagon that comes away with their hand raised and the gold around their waist.
So, how does either man get it done on Saturday night?
Nicksick: I think the path to victory for Jon is to make this a slow-paced, methodical, technical — he really needs to stay within himself, kind of like the Anthony Smith fight; not over-exerting himself, slowing the pace down, and be annoying in a lot of ways.
He’s gonna stomp on the thigh, kick the leg, drop an elbow…
Kyte: Do all the s*** that everybody hates.
Watch: Main Event Preview
Nicksick: And what a lot of that is gonna do is piss Stipe off and make him rush in to where Jon Jones is really good — in those clinch positions, in those car crashes where he can do all those things. That’s the biggest path to victory to me for Jon is to do all those things that are going to make Stipe do things out of character.
Kyte: And what about for Stipe?
Nicksick: He can’t just sit in front of this guy. When we were game planning for Jon with Francis (Ngannou), that was the biggest thing we talked about was, “You can’t just sit in front of this guy because he’s going to pick you apart.”
Full Fight | Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane
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Full Fight | Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane
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There’s multiple moments where you’re gonna have to go into the fire — you might have to eat a punch of two, but you’re gonna have to go through that in order to get inside on him. And then you’ve got to get on him, throw heavy, and put him up against the cage and dirty box him, make him — they’re both heavyweights and Jon has grown into the heavyweight division, but we haven’t seen him fight an actual heavyweight guy at the pace of a heavyweight fight, with guys sagging on you, pulling on your head, dirty boxing, and clinching.
I think that’s how Stipe needs to make this fight is ugly, and not allow Jon to get into a rhythm and a flow. He needs to break that rhythm — be first, be third, and just try to stay on this dude, get in this guy’s face.
X Factor
Kyte: If there was one thing that was going to significantly impact how this fight plays out — that swings it in one direction or the other — what would it be?
Nicksick: The X-factor for me, even before we started talking about it, is the unknown of the three years off, and I think the biggest thing is, knowing his pedigree and the type of person that he is, Stipe wasn’t just sitting on the couch for three years.
I think he did a lot of things in this time to evolve and stay on the cutting edge, and work. I don’t think this is a fight where we should be seeing Stipe Miocic as a +400, +500 fighter — I just don’t think there is enough out there for me to believe that Jon is gonna run through him.
When you see a +460, it’s “this guy is gonna win in the first round.” Would you be surprised if Jon won? No, but to see him as that big of a favorite, I just don’t understand the reasons behind it, other than recency bias.
Kyte: It’s not gonna look like (his fight with Ciryl) Gane. He’s not going out there, shooting an ugly takedown, getting him down, and getting his neck.
Nicksick: You’re talking about a guy that can wrestle, counter-wrestle and all of those things.
I don’t see this fight really making it to the ground, to be honest; I just don’t. You might see some exchanges there, but I don’t see either guy laying there, staying on their backs. I think this fight takes place primarily on the feet, and I think if you do that, you have to give Jon the edge because of the weapons available to him, but Stipe is no slouch!
He may not head kick KO you, but he’ll box your ears off.
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Kyte: That’s what I was gonna say — and listen, it sucks that we do this where we always have that one little thing we cling to like “What’s Alex (Pereira) gonna do when he gets in there with a wrestler?” and with Jon it’s “What’s he gonna do when he gets in there with someone that hits him and has that power?”
It’s still a valid question because no one has really hit him with that big shot. Things never lined up to where he fought “Rumble” Johnson, which was one that I always wanted to see because that dude hit like a semi and he will put you on your ***, and if you’re not ready for it, it’s lights out.
Stipe is a legit dude, and I get it — you ran through Ciryl Gane, but you’re not running through this guy, I don’t think. He’s experienced, he’s technical, and he knows what’s coming.
Nicksick: 100 percent and there was zero for us to draw from in that Ciryl Gane fight other than the wrestling. As a matter of fact, Jon looked a little scared on the feet.
Kyte: And for me, Jon’s put on the weight and he’s grown to be a heavyweight, but he doesn’t look like a genuine heavyweight. He looks like big-*** Jon Jones, and I mean that literally, a little, because a lot of it is booty. He’s a little bigger in the chest, but the legs are still kind of the legs.
And you’re getting in there with somebody who — I saw someone ask Stipe the other day, “Where do you think you’re gonna be at, weight-wise?” and his response was that he’ll be bigger. He’s gonna be in that 250 to 260-pound range, thick, and now let’s see what you do.
Nicksick: Because he was light against Francis, right?
Kyte: Yeah, he was 234 pounds last time. So even if he’s 255 — he’s 255 and he moves well, he’s a good athlete, he’s had three years of letting his body heal, and 18 months or more preparing for you, and he’s not the one coming off the injury.
Athlete's Profile Page: Stipe Miocic
Jon’s the one coming off a gnarly injury, and I imagine that one is pretty not fun.
Nicksick: That’s a really good point.
One Coaching Curiosity
Kyte: Coaches see the sport differently and look at the sport differently than anyone else, picking up on different things and paying attention to movements, habits, or intangible pieces that others might not notice, but that could have a significant impact on the action inside the Octagon.
Every matchup offers its own unique collection of elements that might pique a coach’s interest and get them paying a little closer attention to once the fight gets underway.
So what is that one thing in this matchup?
Nicksick: Man, what’s next? What’s next for this division?
That feels like — no one owes Tom Aspinall anything, but I wonder if the competitor in both of these men will prompt them to do the right thing by Tom and hopefully one of them will look to compete against him. Because he’s the interim champ, the new breed, the next in line, and these two guys have kind of made it a point to say, “I’m good. Win, lose, or draw, I think I’m done.”
Athlete's Profile Page: Jon Jones
But in terms of the competitors in these guys, I don’t see how either of these two can leave that undone? Especially when these guys had these opportunities given to them earlier in their careers.
Kyte: I don’t know, man — you’ve been around long enough to know that’s the kiss of death. It sucks and I wish both stuck around, especially because there’s an interim champ out there, but when you say the competitor in them should prompt them to stick around, I think that the competitor in them knows and understands, “F*** this! I don’t want any part of that dude.”
Because it’s not worth it. If Jon wins, sticks around, fights Tom, and loses, he’s gotta put up with so much irrational, stupid nonsense; just a whole bunch of dumb.
Nicksick: He’s smart. He’s looking to solidify his legacy.
Kyte: And maybe some of this is gamesmanship and creating demand, but I don’t think he’s sticking around.
Nicksick: We’ll see. It’s gonna be interesting.
UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic took place live from Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York on November 16, 2024. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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