Tonight, a big test awaits Jon Jones. Wait? Is he making a return? Who’s he fighting? Before the speculation gets out of hand, let’s make it clear—Jones is not fighting at all. Even though only late last month he teased his return to active competition, the former UFC heavyweight champion and the unofficial UFC GOAT, who last fought Stipe Miocic in 2024, has yet to confirm it officially.

As he reflects on what comes next, Jon Jones has instead shifted his focus to his protege Gable Steveson. The young freestyle wrestler from Indiana, a 202o Tokyo Olympic gold medalist who makes his debut at UFC 329, headlined by Conor McGregor and Max Holloway, has drawn significant attention since reports about Jones mentoring him surfaced. With his protégé set for a career-defining move in which he faces a formidable opponent, Jones now believes it’s time he reset his goals.

“In my mind, I’m already trying to prepare him for 25-minute fights instead of 15-minute fights,” Jones said in a recent interview. “I’m thinking ahead when it comes to him. Just trying to have him pick up exactly where I left off, as far as the standard that we were at. And we’ll see that here. It just feels so good to be back here, you know. It makes me miss the game tremendously.

“But I had my time. I feel like to be one of the best fighters, you have to be very selfish. And now it’s time for me to learn more about being selfless. And so I’m here on Team Steveson, giving him the best I got. Giving him my full support. And all the way to the top.”

Those thoughts about selflessness largely revolve around Jones’s own career trajectory. Training under Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn at the duo’s MMA Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the former UFC two-division champion reached levels that still remain unmatched across the sport.

However, to reach that stage, where his career became a benchmark against which many stars are regularly measured, Jones has to give up a lot. In an interview, he once spoke about how he almost never hesitated in anything he felt like doing.

“There’s no hesitation with me. I believe in going from zero to 100—just go for it. And I think that’s why I catch a lot of my opponents off guard with a lot of tactics that I use,” he said.

While straightforward, the philosophy nonetheless showcases the ruthlessness and clarity that made him a champion across two weight classes and earned him a place among the all-time greats in mixed martial arts.

To shift from that place, where, for a long time, all that mattered to him was winning titles and achieving greatness, Jones has now taken a role where he is required to think about someone else’s career.

For the first time in his career, Jon Jones wants to win through someone else

Jones’ relationship with Steveson began ahead of UFC 309 back in 2024. Since then, it has evolved to a point where Jones has even spoken about Steveson becoming a future UFC heavyweight champion.

“My relationship with him is everything,” Steveson said about Jones during an interview with MMA Fighting. “It’s kind of crazy the way I fight; he’s kind of created the way I want to fight in the future. The dude’s a legend, but he’s also my close friend now. He’s my close friend, he’s my coach, he’s everything in between.”

Viewed through that context, the 38-year-old’s case often reminds one of another famous relationship in MMA where a great fighter helped develop a talented prospect and took him to the championship level.

That’s how many view the relationship between Khabib Nurmagomedov, who many consider the greatest lightweight in UFC history and who retired in 2020, and Islam Makhachev, the reigning welterweight champion, who, after Khabib’s departure from the promotion, won the lightweight title in 2022. To this day, Islam remains a protege of the Nurmagomedov clan, much like Steveson is for Jones.

The only difference between Jones and Nurmagomedov, however, could be that while the former heavyweight champion has to confirm his stance on his future, which recently came under scrutiny following the back-and-forth over his appearance at the White Card, the Dagestani legend has remained clear that he will never make a return to the cage.

While there have been reports about him potentially fighting Oleksandr Usyk in a boxing match early next year, it remains unconfirmed what Jones plans to do next. While he has largely stepped away from active competition, he has flip-flopped about whether he intends to retire or not.

It’s likely that, post-Gable Stevenson’s debut bout, which many expect him to win, Jones will be able to shed more light on whether he wants to stay put and be given one last opportunity at an extended career or simply focus on taking Stevenson’s career to the next level.