‘Should I Tell Stipe To F— Off?’

White once again declared Jon Jones the pound-for-pound best fighter in the UFC and suggested fans would be unhappy no matter how he handled a November fight with Stipe Miocic.

Dana White is once again mixing it up with the press over Jon Jones’ status as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter and greatest of all time.

This is becoming a weekly affair with the UFC CEO, who is taking fire from fighters, fans, and the media over his refusal to grant interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall the next title shot against Jones, who hasn’t defended the undisputed belt since winning it in March 2023.

“He’s the pound for pound best fighter in the world, and he’s the GOAT,” White declared. “And you all know this. Numbers don’t lie.”

“Are you guys that f—ing stupid?” he responded when a reporter joked that Jones must have incriminating pictures of him. “You can’t be that f—ing stupid to think that Jon Jones is not the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world and the GOAT … Who’s better than Jon Jones? Who’s pound-for-pound better?”

“These kids that come in here that are undefeated, you know how hard it is to stay undefeated? Jon Jones went through murderers’ row. When you talk about activity, he’s fought one time [in four years], but Jon Jones was supposed to fight. If Jon Jones was sitting on the couch and saying, ‘Yeah, I don’t know when I’m gonna fight again,’ then he’s definitely not in the pound-for-pound discussion right now. He was he was scheduled to fight, and he got injured. He is an active fighter.”

“He is absolutely an active fighter,” White continued. “And when you talk about pound-for-pound, and I don’t wanna s— on any of my other guys, but who is it right now? Islam? Islam, many people believe, lost to the guy who’s a weight class below him. Is that how pound for pound works? He fought a weight class down. Jon Jones fought a weight class up.”

“And let me tell you what, when all the guys were in there, you had the Jon Jones, the Anderson Silvas, and the George Saint Pierres, I know who wanted to fight who and who didn’t wanna fight who. Jon Jones has always been willing to fight everybody.”

“The only real mark with me with Jon Jones, it was his f—ing team that he was with at that time,” he said. “Who I could tell you 50 f—ing stories about the Chael Sonnen fight when they were refusing to fight Chael Sonnen.”

“But other than that, Jon Jones has fought everybody that’s ever been put in front of him. He went through murderer’s row. And if you look at who he fought at the time when he fought them, look at the record of the guys combined that he fought. The list just goes on and on. That makes him the greatest fighter of all time.”

White went on to defend Stipe Miocic again, who hasn’t fought since 2021 and hasn’t won a fight since 2020.

“A guy who’s looked at as the greatest heavyweight in the UFC,” he said of Miocic. “This fight’s set up, Jon Jones gets hurt. Not his fault. He has to wait and go back into f—ing training camp again. He was training. So do I just yank it away from Stipe and say, ‘Hey, go f— yourself and sit on the sidelines for 2 more years’ or you know what I mean?”

“If I did that, you guys would be like, ‘Oh, you f—ing disrespected the greatest heavyweight ever. So would the f—ing fans. So I should just s— on Stipe because Jon got hurt and not make the fight that he was already supposed to fight?”

“So I have two legends in a sport that want to fight each other. These guys are lined up. One guy gets hurt, and this is the fight that they both want. What do you do? You don’t show the guys the respect?”

“I guarantee you this, if Stipe wins, Stipe is gonna retire. This will be Stipe’s last fight. So are you, the media, telling me I should just tell Stipe to f— off and ‘Good luck to you, Stipe, ride off into the sunset? Go fight some fires and that that’s a wrap for you, buddy.’ Because Jon got hurt. Or do I show this guy the respect that I should show him and give them both the fight that they want? You know, that that that’s that’s the position I’m in.”

“We we had this thing lined up,” White concluded. “And again, if Stipe was 32 years old, then yeah, that’s probably what we do. But this is probably Stipe’s last fight, win or lose. And I’m not gonna disrespect the guy.”

Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic is currently planned for UFC 309 on November 16th at Madison Square Garden. And unless someone gets hurt, don’t expect the UFC or Dana White to change those plans.