Mir: Jon Jones can beat any UFC heavyweight — except Stipe Miocic

Reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is running out of potential contenders at 205 pounds, after finishing his business with Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 last month in Anaheim, California.

That means Jones may have to look for green grass and high tides forever in the promotion’s heavyweight division, where a potential super fight against former division kingpin Brock Lesnar awaits.

But why move up a class and not challenge for the title? Probably because “Bones” would be broken against the likes of Stipe Miocic, who captured the crown against Fabricio Werdum before defending it against Alistair Overeem and Junior dos Santos, respectively.

So says “nervous” friend and training partner Frank Mir (via MMA Fighting):

“The only fight immediately that would make me nervous for Jon would be Stipe. I think any other heavyweight I can see [Jones] beating. Stipe is a hard one. And I think Alistair, too, might be a hard one. Even Jon is not rushing to fight Stipe. You could hear when Jon called out Brock, stylistically that fight makes sense for Jon if he moves up to heavyweight. But when you say ‘fight Stipe,’ he’s like, ‘ehh.’ There’s a reason why. [Miocic is] a really good big guy.”

Good enough to win five straight — all by knockout.

Jones (23-1) was quick to dismiss the possibility of a title unification fight against the “relatively unknown” Miocic (17-2), because the UFC heavyweight champion — unlike Lesnar — is a poor-draw at the box office (see those comments here).

And that’s not how his inspiration would have done it.

No word yet on what the future will bring for Jones or any of the other in the 265-pound division (see the rankings here), but the next couple of months are going to be very, very interesting.