Derrick Lewis expects the UFC 309 main event to be utterly one-sided.
Jon Jones is set to defend his heavyweight belt against former two-time titleholder Stipe Miocic at Madison Square Garden in New York on November 16.
‘Bones’ has just one fight and 124 seconds at heavyweight, but he’s still favored to get by the guy many fans consider the best big man in MMA history.
Miocic hasn’t fought since being brutally knocked out by Francis Ngannou in March 2021, and ‘The Black Beast’ expects him to have another bad night at the office later this month.
Derrick Lewis predicts quick win for Jon Jones at UFC 309
Derrick Lewis is set to face 8-0 prospect Jhonata Diniz at UFC Edmonton on Saturday.
Ahead of his 30th UFC fight, he was asked for a prediction on Jones vs Miocic.
Lewis sees Jones being utterly dominated in the fight that was supposed to take place at UFC 295 last November, only for an injury to scupper the champion’s first defense.
“I think Jon will beat him in the first round,” Lewis said at the UFC Edmonton media day on Wednesday.
“It’s crazy to see that a lot of people just disrespect Jones like that, like he ain’t the GOAT, for real. A lot of people keep throwing around these GOAT terms and this and that. It’s like, Jones has been doing this for so many years at the top of the level against all these opponents, like top-ranked guys.
“And even though he has been having all this trouble outside of the UFC, it’s like people outside of the UFC don’t even know, it’s 80 percent mental that you got to go into these fights, and it’s like 20 percent physical.
“If you don’t have the mentality going into these fights, you’re not going to do well. For him to be going through all that stuff that he’s been going through, and still beating these guys like this, it says a lot.”
Derrick Lewis backs Dana White’s pound-for-pound claim
Jones has competed just once in the four past years. Despite that, UFC CEO Dana White insists he’s the pound-for-pound best fighter in MMA ahead of Islam Makhachev and Alex Pereira.
The 37-year-old is almost universally regarded as the sport’s greatest of all time [GOAT], but many people struggle to see past his inactivity when ranking the best fighters in 2024.
Lewis agrees with his boss and says Jones is still the P4P number one.
He added: “Of course, he’s for sure pound-for-pound. It’s crazy how a lot of these guys keep getting pound-for-pound and they ain’t even had that many fights.
“Just think about my run when I had a six-fight winning streak going on and they ain’t even mention me being in pound-for-pound.
“It’s crazy that these guys come into the UFC now, they get two or three fights, and already pass up everyone who has been fighting for years and already ranked pound-for-pound.
“I’m like, ‘Damn, that’s just complete disrespect.’”