Jon Jones out of UFC 295 with injury, title fight with Stipe Miocic called off
Jon Jones, current UFC heavyweight champion, has pulled out of UFC 295 with an injury. His title fight with Stipe Miocic has been called off and is being replaced at the top of the UFC 295 lineup.
UFC CEO Dana White made the announcement in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, posting a video on social media that showed footage of Jones injuring a pectoral muscle during practice.
White said that Jones has torn a pectoral tendon off the bone, and will need surgery to repair it. He estimated the recovery time to be around eight months.
While typically Miocic would be given another opponent instead of being kicked off the card entirely, he was not the main draw of this fight. Jones is the current heavyweight champion and him defending his title against Miocic was the selling point of this bout, so it makes little sense to pair Miocic with someone else who isn't Jones. ESPN's Mark Raimondi reported that there is hope that Jones versus Miocic can be booked for a big title fight in 2024.
The fight replacing Jones versus Miocic will be between Jiri Prochazka and Alex Pereira for the light heavyweight title, which is currently vacant. That fight was already on the card, and so an interim heavyweight title bout between Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich has been added as the co-main event.
UFC 295 is on Nov. 11 at Madison Square Garden, and will be broadcast on ESPN+ PPV.
