UFC Targeting Madison Square Garden for Jon Jones-Stipe Miocic Title Bout

It’s unlikely that Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic will square off this summer, but the heavyweight title bout could wind up at one of the most historic arenas in all of professional sports.

Jones teased a potential booking at Madison Square Garden in New York on Twitter, and UFC president Dana White later confirmed that the venue is now the target for the fight.

“As far as I know everything is good and hopefully we have a fight with him and Stipe very soon,” White said at the UFC on ESPN 44 post-fight press conference. “That’s where we’d like to do it.”

Jones captured the vacant heavyweight strap with a first-round submission of Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 in March. It was the first Octagon appearance for “Bones” in more than three years. Jones signed an eight-fight UFC deal ahead of the bout, but it’s possible that his fighting career will end much sooner than that.

“How cool would it be to spend my retirement fight dominating the greatest heavyweight of all time, in my home state at Madison Square Garden?” Jones wrote on Twitter. For whatever it's worth, Jones backtracked on the retirement talk in a subsequent tweet.

How cool would it be to spend my retirement fight dominating the greatest heavyweight of all time, in my home state at Madison Square Garden?

— BONY (@JonnyBones) April 16, 2023

The originally targeted event for Jones vs. Miocic was UFC 290, but that show already has a pair of title fights at the top of the card with Alexander Volkanovski vs. Yair Rodriguez and Brandon Moreno vs. Alexandre Pantoja. A date for the UFC’s return to New York has not been announced, but it will likely take place in the fall as it often has in recent years.

Miocic, who holds the UFC record for most consecutive heavyweight title defenses, hasn’t competed since a second-round knockout loss to Francis Ngannou at UFC 260 in March 2021.