Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic is just one day away ... and future Hall of Famer, Dominick Cruz, is breaking down the fight, dubbed by many the greatest heavyweight bout in UFC history!
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00I was at one of P. Diddy's freak-offs.
00:03Freak-offs.
00:04You saw celebrities there that you recognized.
00:07Mm-hmm.
00:08It was a rapper that we all know.
00:11Straight-up porn directed by Diddy.
00:13I'm just grateful to have made it out.
00:17What I would say is I look at this from a standpoint of
00:21John coming up to heavyweight, which makes this intriguing.
00:25That's what people want to see.
00:27What does he look like coming up to heavyweight for the second time?
00:30I look at Jones coming off of a bicep tear at a new weight class.
00:36I mean, not completely new, but new.
00:38He's had one fight.
00:40I look at Stipe, who has spent not, I don't think, more days out of the Octagon,
00:46but maybe almost the same amount of days,
00:49close to the same amount of days as I spent away from the Octagon with knee injuries.
00:54And I did okay.
00:56And then I look at Jones and just who he is, right?
01:02These are all things that I look at.
01:04And when I take all that information, of course Stipe can get it done
01:10because he's a true heavyweight.
01:13He's got power in his hands.
01:15The question that takes that true heavyweight message away is the time off, right?
01:21Yeah.
01:22And I'll tell you, going through that myself, he didn't have an injury.
01:25He was just out.
01:26So from my experience, there was two good things.
01:30The number one main thing is the freshness of the mind.
01:34The number two good thing is the freshness of the body with the time away.
01:38Some people would say ring rest is real, all these things.
01:41You can't come back and look the same.
01:43The lights will get you, all these things.
01:45No, it's like if you do the correct training,
01:47if you really torture yourself enough before the next fight,
01:50and that's literally what it is.
01:52Torture yourself to the bitter end.
01:55If you do that, then you're ready for the five-round title fight,
01:58whether you've been out five years or one year or ten years.
02:01I mean you just have to torture yourself to the level that you're about to be at.
02:07And I would even say even more, if you've been gone a long time,
02:10torture yourself double what you normally torture yourself
02:13because then when the panic hits you, you're prepared for it.
02:16You've got an extra leg on top of what you already have
02:19because you double tortured yourself.
02:21And that's all fighting is.
02:22It's a race and who can deal with the torture longer than the other person
02:26until they come out on top or the button gets pushed.
02:30And I think that Dipe has the power in both hands at any given time.
02:34Power is the last thing that you lose in a fight with age.
02:38So he's got the power to push the button.
02:41He's got the boxing accolades and years of experience.
02:45And so the things are there.
02:49But what makes this fight fun are all the intangibles that I just explained.
02:52That's why we're watching.
02:54It's the weird little intangibles here and there.
02:57The Dipe being gone, the Jones having his peck torn, moving up a weight class.
03:02These are things that make it fun for me.
03:05Sometimes when I think of these things, Dom, I say,
03:08okay, how would Dipe go out there and win?
03:12What is that, Pat?
03:13Is it landing a big punch and knocking Jon out?
03:18I don't get the feeling that Dipe is going to submit Jon.
03:21I don't think that Dipe is going to try and take Jon down, obviously.
03:24It seems to me that Jon has many more ways that he could potentially win the fight.
03:28Is that correct?
03:30I would agree with you on that.
03:33If you look at the analytics and you look at the –
03:36it's really like looking at the tool set.
03:38Let's say we made it a plumbing problem.
03:40Who's got more tools?
03:42And who do you hire for the job?
03:44The full tool belt or the one with one tool?
03:47Now this is the one thing, though, that you have to really take into notion.
03:51Power is almost four tools in one, which is power.
03:55And Dipe does have a shot to knock you out.
03:58Like he has that power.
04:00He has a one-shot knockout power.
04:02We have seen it versus Fabrizio Verdun.
04:04We've seen it versus other people where he touches you and you go down.
04:08So he does have that in his back pocket.
04:10And that's what I would say is, as a heavyweight, you all have that.
04:13And that's new for Jones.
04:15Coming up to heavyweight, he's got to get hit less.
04:19And really he's – I know we obviously have said, Don, that he has a fight,
04:23but that was a fight that went less than half a round against Cyril Ghosn
04:28and was not spent on the feet much at all.
04:30So although he's got a fight under his belt,
04:32he really doesn't have much octagon time as a heavyweight,
04:35at least under the bright lights.
04:38I like what you just said right there about Cyril Ghosn.
04:41That's a very great point, man, because Cyril Ghosn has zero grappling,
04:45which is another piece you have to add to the equation for Stipe.
04:48And I'm not hating on Cyril Ghosn, but he goes to his back.
04:53It's a style option is what I'm saying, more than he can grapple.
04:57He can grapple, but he goes to his butt more,
05:00which is a jiu-jitsu style of mixed martial art,
05:04whereas Stipe has a wrestling style first.
05:07He's a boxer-wrestler, and that is a good recipe to do well against Ghosn.
05:12And when you look at Stipe versus Ngannou,
05:16that's another sprawl and brawl style.
05:19So that's like a mirror match with more power.
05:23Ngannou, to me, has more power.
05:25So if anything else, this really sets up another fight.
05:28I think the real fight that we've got to talk about personally,
05:31if we're talking about Jon Jones being the greatest ever
05:34in every decade that there's been,
05:36it's like you've got to face the new guys.
05:38And that Tom Aspinall has been looking nasty, too.
05:40And that guy is the young – that's the this-decade true heavyweight.
05:45That is like this timing true heavyweight.
05:48He's the old heavyweight, you know?
05:51Yeah, he's like the – you can obviously see, Dom,
05:55if you look at the sport and you look at a guy who was a heavyweight in the past,
05:59like Tank Abbott, like Tom Aspinall.
06:02They are very – no shade on Tank Abbott,
06:05but that guy looks like he would brawl in a bar.
06:07And this guy, Tom Aspinall, can do everything.
06:10That's how you know you're educated, man.
06:12See, TMZ knows what they're saying.
06:14Don't forget, don't sleep on TMZ people because you're right.
06:17Tank Abbott, look at the difference.
06:18Look at the – you can't even – it's super visible to see the difference in style.
06:26And when we talk about Tom Aspinall, he's got the whole package.
06:29It's not just that he can defend and wrestle.
06:33He's also got the speed, the striking, the explosiveness.
06:35And more than that, he's got the weight and the size.
06:38That is the big difference.
06:39The frame holds the weight of heavyweight, and it needs to.
06:43It's not that it needs – he could probably cut weight to be a true heavyweight.
06:47So that's the real new age 2024 mixed martial arts highest level UFC,
06:56I believe, heavyweight is Tom Aspinall.
06:59I believe Jon Jones would – I would love – I would be very interested in that fight.
07:06Why is Jon resistant, do you think, Tom?
07:09I would never call Jon Jones scared of any or ducking anybody.
07:13Why do you think he's resistant to that?
07:15He's made it clear this week he doesn't – he seemingly does not want Tom Aspinall.
07:18Yeah, scared is not the word.
07:20And everybody can admit that.
07:22I'm not scared of anybody.
07:23When you're at this level in the UFC, I swear to God, I don't believe anybody's scared of me.
07:26I don't believe anybody –
07:28Like, we're all not scared of each other.
07:30But the difference is where your career is at, where your ego is at, and legacy is ego attached to ego.
07:38You heard Tyson say it himself.
07:40He said, look, we're all dust at the end of the day.
07:43And legacy, I don't – you heard Tyson say, I don't believe in legacy.
07:48Legacy is attached to the ego.
07:50Now, how much do you need your ego to win these fights?
07:53That's the question.
07:54And Jon Jones has a big ego.
07:55So I think that at the end of the day, that's what drives this man to be the killer that he is.
08:00And it's a very important thing that people love to watch take place.
08:03It's incredible to watch his ego just take him over on that fight week and just smash people.
08:09And we all want to let that out.
08:11And I think Jon Jones really encapsulates that as a whole with his being on that fight week.
08:16He just changes where so many – he's like a rollercoaster of emotions on that fight week.
08:20And, you know, that's what this thing's about.
08:22So I think ego is what's on the line.
08:25And it's tough to fight a guy that's that big, that's that young, that's that ready.
08:31And I think that if there's ever a chance it could happen, it's now because he's got this fight versus Stipe.
08:37I don't want to say it's like a tune-em-up fight, but it's like you're fighting a guy at a true heavyweight
08:42that's got true power to really tune yourself up.
08:45I think it's going to, like, trigger Jones to want to fight Aspinall and take out the new age,
08:53the true new age UFC mixed martial arts heavyweight right now.
08:57I think now when he beats that guy, I personally as a fighter, the fan might not know, but as a fighter,
09:04when he can beat Aspinall after Stipe, it's over.
09:06Like, that's really – and some people would say, well, how many – what's after that?
09:11There is nothing after that.
09:12Like, he's – it's the new age heavyweight, Tom Aspinall.
09:16You know, he really is. He's got all the skills.