Stipe
Miocic claims he wasn’t offered an alternative fight when
scheduled opponent
Jon Jones
pulled out of
UFC
295.
Jones (27-1) was slated to defend his heavyweight title against
Miocic (20-4) in the main event at UFC 295 on Nov. 11 at Madison
Square Garden. However, “Bones” was forced out of the card after
sustaining a pectoral muscle tear during a grappling session hardly
two weeks away from fight night.
An interim heavyweight title matchup between
Tom
Aspinall and
Sergei
Pavlovich has been added to the card as the co-main event.
Meanwhile, the original co-main, a light heavyweight title clash
between
Jiri
Prochazka and
Alex
Pereira, has been bumped up to the main-event slot.
While Jones was forced out of the card due to an injury, Miocic saw
himself removed due to no fault of his own. The former UFC
heavyweight champ, who hasn’t fought since losing his strap to
Francis
Ngannou in March 2021, was expectedly disheartened upon hearing
the news.
“How did I feel when I woke up today? Like I got kicked in the
nuts,” Miocic said in a video on his
OnlyFans account. “In the
morning, I woke up to my phone vibrating. It was dark, I had my son
on top of me, trying to move and get my phone. I finally got my
phone and had a text message from my manager saying my fight was
off. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.”
Asked if Miocic had been offered a replacement, Dana White said an
interim title clash offer