Stipe Miocic has a message for Jon Jones

In the buildup to and immediate fallout of his UFC 214 title fight with Daniel Cormier, Jon Jones has expressed real interest in a fight with former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. The reason for this callout of Lesnar, Jones explained, is because he believes a fight with a superstar with Lesnar at heavyweight would be even more lucrative than a fight with reigning heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic.

“I feel like if I was going to take a fight at heavyweight it would be against a person who me and my coaches feel would be a perfect matchup for me,” Jones told the media at the UFC 214 post fight press conference. “Right now, Stipe is looking extremely impressive. And I believe if you get an extremely talented big guy versus an extremely talented little guy, I mean, a lot of the cards are in his favor. At the same time, I fear no man. I strike for a reason when I strike.”

“I feel like Stipe is relatively unknown to the general public. It wouldn’t even be a real superfight in my opinion. I think a lot of MMA fans would be super excited about it, but the general public wouldn’t care about that fight.”

Speaking to FloCombat on Monday, Miocic responded to these comments from Jones. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t love them.

“Listen, I’ll fight anyone. If the UFC wants me to fight Jon, I’ll fight him,” Miocic told FloCombat on Monday. “All I care about right now is breaking that [heavyweight title defense] record, winning now and keeping the belt for a long time. I think I am relevant, I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t have as many fans as him on social media maybe, but I’m pretty sure I’m relevant.”

“I’m the baddest man on the planet for a reason,” he continued. “He can think what he wants, whatever. Listen, at the end of the day I am relevant.”

“It would be a huge fight. I don’t understand why you don’t think it would be a huge fight. You’ve got pound-for-pound best fighter in the world against No. 4 pound-for-pound. We’re both champions and it’s a fight people want to see. But I’m irrelevant right now so we’ll see.”

Though Miocic disagrees with Jones’ reasoning, he does agree that he’s a far tougher matchup for the light heavyweight champ than Lesnar.

“Yeah definitely, I’m a bigger risk 100-percent than Brock Lesnar,” Miocic said. “There’s no question.”

Would you rather see Jon Jones fight Brock Lesnar or Stipe Miocic?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 8/8/2017.