UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones has been issuing challenges to former UFC Heavyweight Champion and current WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar.
However, longtime MMA coach Mike Winklejohn feels that current UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic is a bigger challenge for Jones.
“You know, Jon is a light heavyweight, so you can’t ask somebody just to step up and fight the best in the world at heavyweight and forego the money fight against someone who they think they can beat,” he said on Submission Radio. “Jon said it himself, he thinks a good big man always beats a good smaller man. Jon Jones said that himself in a press conference. Do I think Jon thinks he can beat Stipe? Yeah. Do I think he might have said it? Yes. But I like the Brock Lesnar fight for right now. And we need to work on some skills and get some weight on Jon before he fights with Stipe, because I think that Stipe is a harder fight.”
Jones has stated in the past that a bout with Miocic would interest him, which is something the UFC Heavyweight Champion has said as well.
Coach Winklejohn firmly believes that whether Jones fights Miocic or Lesnar, the light heavyweight champion can get the knockout win.
“Oh, I sure do. I think Jon can knock out anybody with his strikes,” Winkeljohn said. “The problem in the past was, Jon’s striking was not his base, wrestling was his base. So all those years when he came over to us, it was just kind of working with Jon, he was doing a lot of repetition, a lot of different unpredictable type of shots. But it was always a lot of reps, a lot of, I want to say just “bop, bop, bop, bop,” that type of thing.”
Lesnar is currently serving a one year suspension from USADA, while neither Jones or Miocic have a fight scheduled at the moment.
