UFC boss Dana White has confirmed the promotion are aiming to stage Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic this November, all but confirming Conor McGregor's comeback will take place a month later.
The heavyweight super-fight would pit newly-crowned champion Jones against the legendary, longest-reigning champion in divisional history Miocic, with bosses aiming for the bout to headline at UFC 295 in Madison Square Garden. Jones and Miocic have been in talks publicly and privately for years, with plans now for the duo to go head-to-head in the famed New York venue on November 11.
And what White didn't say while speaking with The Pat McAfee Show in a recent interview was that booking Jones vs Miocic to headline at The Garden means that McGregor's return against Michael Chandler will almost certainly land on December 11. The promotion have two major year-end cards, one in New York and one in Las Vegas, with the two bouts to headline.
"Jon Jones? We're working on something for him later this year," White said during an appearance last week. "Everybody knows we're hopefully targeting MSG and possibly him and Stipe Miocic - taxes are an issue to guys, no doubt about it. Certain athletic commissions, there's a lot of different [factors]. People don't realise what goes into making these fights behind the scenes."
White has previously stated McGregor vs Chandler, which will be pre-empted by a summer season of The Ultimate Fighter, will headline the other of the promotion's two major events. And with New York spoken for, it appears that the Irishman will return to his fighting home of Nevada, from where he has only drifted twice in his career as a pay-per-view headliner.
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He won his featherweight world titles, first interim and then undisputed, in Las Vegas, before headlining twice in non-title welterweight bouts with Nate Diaz in 2016. He briefly ventured to New York for the historic first MMA show in the state since the sport was legalised at UFC 205, before returning to Sin City.
McGregor took on Floyd Mayweather in an historic crossover boxing match the following summer at the T-Mobile Arena, and returned to the octagon a year later to face Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight belt in the same venue. His 2020 comeback against Donald Cerrone was also held there, before covid forced him to Abu Dhabi for UFC 257 when he rematched Dustin Poirier.
And he was back in Vegas again when it was time for the trilogy with Poirier, welcoming the promotion back to their home city for the first time with a capacity crowd after over two years of restrictions on large gatherings. He has been out of action since that bout, however, recovering from a gruesome broken leg that cost him the fight and two further years of his career.
