It'll be nearly 1,000 days between trips to the Octagon for Stipe Miocic, but the former UFC heavyweight champ isn't approaching his scrap with Jon Jones any differently than his two dozen previous fights, telling us the mindset's to beat "Bones" Jones to a pulp!
Miocic joined Mojo Muhtadi on the "TMZ Sports" TV show (airs weekdays on FS1) ... and talked about his highly anticipated tilt with Jon, going down at UFC 295 on November 11 at Madison Square Garden.
"Finally here. This is a fight I wanted for a very long time, the only fight I wanted, and I finally got it. Nothing better than Madison Square Garden," Stipe said, adding "The venue is just amazing, pretty pumped!"
As for whether 40-year-old Miocic has been slowed down by age and time away from the cage, Miocic says he "feels good," and has simply "listened to his body more" as he's gotten older.
"Mindset's still I'm gonna go out there and do my thing and beat that ass!"
Of course, Jones has only one fight at heavyweight ... albeit, an absolutely dominating performance against one of the top title contenders, Ciryl Gane, at UFC 285 in March, where Jon won by 1st round submission.
Stipe says the fight was just too quick (only took JJ 2 minutes against CG) to extract much useful info -- how Jones will fight as a heavyweight -- as opposed to the lion's share of his career, which was spent in the LHW division.
"His last fight really didn't go that long. So it was very hard to judge what he was doing, but I mean, it's Jon Jones, man. He got a lot of tricks up his sleeves. Real good. He's veteran. He knows what to do."
But ... "I mean, I've had a lot of fights and I know what to do as well."
November can't come soon enough!
We also talked to Miocic about Francis Ngannou's boxing match with Tyson Fury, and the Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg scrap -- a fight Stipe believes will be the biggest of all time.