Stipe Miocic warns Jon Jones about UFC 309 title fight

During fight week media interactions, athletes are rarely far from a bottle of water.

But only the heavyweights have the luxury of filling a plate with food, answering questions, and enjoying a meal in the process.

While question-and-answer sessions aren’t his thing, Stipe Miocic at least had his veggie wrap on Wednesday afternoon during UFC 309 media day, his first full interaction with reporters since his last fight more than three and a half years ago.

“They still suck,” Miocic, the former heavyweight champion who returns Saturday in the main event at Madison Square Garden where he will challenge Jon Jones for the title he previously held twice, teased reporters about answering theirs Questions. “It has gotten better over the years. I accepted it. I understand.”

For Miocic (20-4, 15 finishes), this is “part of the game,” and what matters most to him is that he finally gets his chance to win back the title he lost to Francis Ngannou in March 2021.

If it had been up to him, Miocic would have handled that part of the matter last November when he and Jones were first booked at the Garden, the delay caused by Jones’ torn pectoral muscle less than two weeks before UFC 295.

At the end of the day, Miocic is just happy to get the fight he wanted most after his year-long layoff against Jones (27-1, 17 finishes), who is arguably the GOAT of mixed martial arts, whose only career loss before 15 years ago came about a controversial disqualification.

“I wanted Jon Jones more than anything,” Miocic said. “But it wouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen. But [I’m] I’m glad it worked out that way.”

Unlike Miocic, a career heavyweight who also works as a full-time firefighter in his native Ohio, Jones made his name as the most dominant light heavyweight champion in the history of the sport.

He is a newcomer to the UFC’s biggest weight class, having won the title in March 2023 that was vacated by Ngannou’s departure as a free agent to the PFL. He is just 1-0 in the heavyweight division.

Jones had been out of competition for three years to transform his body for the move to heavyweight, but the champion recently told The Post that he was already down to 235 pounds from the 248 pounds he weighed when he won the title against Ciryl Gane have lost weight.

Miocic believes the big boys simply aren’t the same as the competition Jones faced from his debut in 2008 to his heavyweight debut last year.

“Definitely a different game when it comes to heavyweight,” said Miocic, a former college baseball player and wrestler. “We have bigger guys who hit harder, a lot of things are different. We’ll see. I have a lot up my sleeve, just like he does.”

Miocic presents a more comprehensive challenge to Jones than Gane, an athletic French kickboxer with weak defensive wrestling – a mix that made him a good meal for Jones, who mauled Gane within a round with his violent mix of high-level wrestling and mangling Ground and pound.

The Ohioan hits like a truck – ask Daniel Cormier and Fabricio Werdum, the men he defeated to win the heavyweight crown twice – and his wrestling background makes him no easy target to be drawn into a Jones-friendly world to become.

No other fight on the UFC 309 fight order can match the attention of the headlining bout, but one man who won’t even be competing in town this weekend finished off Jones-Miocic: Tom Aspinall, who did so last November crowned interim champion The night Jones and Miocic were supposed to meet for the first time.

For most of Jones’ time in front of the assembled media on Wednesday, the two-division champion delved into his mindset and looked ahead to a fight against light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, the decorated former kickboxing king who also holds titles in several UFC weight classes won as Aspinall in a unification fight.

This revelation, made to The Post last week, was not well received by many singing fans and media members online.

For the most part, Miocic, a to-the-point man of relatively few words, didn’t have to deal with it. There is also a feeling that the 42-year-old could end his career on Saturday night regardless of the result, even if he has not revealed the truth.

He’s focused on the task at hand, tying Randy Couture’s record of three different UFC heavyweight titles.

And while the first two each have a meaning, Miocic thinks the third will be the sweetest of them all.

“They’re all special,” Miocic says, “but maybe this one, I think, because it’s the Mecca; It’s Jon Jones. It doesn’t get any better or bigger.”