Jon Jones seems to be in the shadow of the injury that barred him from competing at UFC 295. The reigning heavyweight champ, of course tore his pectoral muscle and had to undergo surgery, putting him out of action for an extended period of time. One year on the dot, ‘Bones’ is set to add another ‘ruby’ to his resume as he faces the division’s greatest in Stipe Miocic for the division crown. However, Jones has revealed that he isn’t a hundred percent yet.

“This is about as soon as I should be back in the cage. The injury was anywhere from 8 months to a year and I feel like we’re right around the one year mark. So I mean some athletes would still be using this time to recover,” Jones told the ‘New York Post’ in a recent interview.

The injury, in fact, seems to have taken quite a toll on Jones as he admitted that he isn’t ‘as strong’ as he was before.“But I know the sport can only wait for so long, and I do feel healed enough to be in there. I’m not as strong as I used to be but I’m smarter than ever. I have a lot of experience and I’m plenty strong and it’s going to be a great fight,” he added.

Jones is the favourite going in and is expected to win the fight against the 42-year-old Miocic who hasn’t fought in the past three years. However, the playing field may be more even than previously thought. After all, Miocic already had the size advantage over the former 205-pounder, and now has another going into UFC 309. If he does beat Miocic, however, Jones thinks he might have one other fight in him.

Jon Jones completely rules out a unification bout against Tom Aspinall

Almost the entire UFC world wants to see Jon Jones fight interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall after his legacy clash with Miocic. This surprisingly includes Dana White, who believes (read hopes) that winner of Jones-Miocic will fight Aspinall before retiring. But Jones, of course, has indicated that he will retire after UFC 309. However, he told Kevin Iole in a recent interview that he might stick around for one more fight. But not against Aspinall.

“If there were to be a fight against somebody still on the UFC roster that would not only be financially worth it but legacy worth it, it would be [light heavyweight champion] Alex Pereira,” ‘Bones’ said.

The ‘undisputed’ heavyweight champ feels that Aspinall is a ‘nobody’, who hasn’t really done anything so far to be worthy of fighting the great Jon Jones. Some would point out that that doesn’t matter. Aspinall is the interim champ and has virtually cleared the division at this point and thus deserving to fight the undisputed champ to unify the gold. But Jones only wants to fight someone who could help him shore up his legacy, and feels the Englishman is not one of those guys. What do you think about Jon Jones’ revelations about his injury?