How Jim Miller overcame disease, doubt on road to historic UFC 300 appearance

Jim Miller had it all mapped out.

Stuck in the worst stretch of his professional career and feeling the aches and pains of more than a decade spent earning a living by fighting other men inside a cage, the Sparta, N.J., native sat alongside his brother, Dan, who had pulled the plug on his own fighting career just a few months earlier, and told him he was ready to do the same.

Scheduled to face Diego Sanchez at UFC 196, Miller, then 32 years old, envisioned getting through the fight and logging one more at UFC 200, the promotion’s anticipated blockbuster event slated to be held in July of that year. He’d fought at UFC 100 seven years prior, registering a win over Mac Danzig, and thought wrapping things up by competing at the next milestone event would be a fitting capstone to his career inside the Octagon.

“I was gonna retire at UFC 200,” recalled the veteran lightweight, who ultimately didn’t hang up the gloves in the summer of 2016. ”I was dragging myself through training camp for UFC 196, barely able to get out of bed some mornings. I could probably count on my two hands the amount of live sessions — grappling and striking combined — in the eight weeks leading up to that fight. It was rough.

“The easiest thing for me to do was hop on the treadmill, do a little jog. I was like, ‘I just can’t do this anymore. I’ll get through this fight, I’ll ask to fight at UFC 200, and I’ll call it quits at UFC 200.’ I remember talking to my brother — we were in the parking lot of the gym — and I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do this any more.’”

Miller lost a unanimous decision to Sanchez at UFC 196, leaving him 1-4 in a five-fight stretch and coming off back-to-back losses, but his request to compete at UFC 200 was granted without pause.

That’s how it works when you’re “Jim F****** Miller.”

Originally a moniker only those in the industry knew, the profane but apropos nom de pugilism was bestowed on the lightweight stalwart by former UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, as part of an excited response to Miller quickly accepting yet another assignment without pause.

So when the lightweight stalwart asked for an opportunity to fight at 2016's landmark event set to close out that year’s International Fight Week in Las Vegas, Silva obliged, pairing him with Japanese veteran Takanori Gomi in the opening fight of the night.

As Miller began preparations for what was to be his final fight camp, he got news that resulted in a massive change in plans.

“I got a call from my doctor when I was out in Vegas for UFC 196, like Wednesday or Thursday,” began Miller, recalling one of the most important moments in his personal and professional career. “We had been talking because I had my pre-fight physical before that one, and he was asking if anything else was going on. I told him my symptoms, and he was like, ‘We’re gonna run some tests.’

“Everything that came back, he suspected it was Lyme (disease), so I told myself, ‘Let’s figure this out; dive into treating it, getting over it, and play it from there.’”

The diagnosis was a game-changer for Miller; a key that made all the pieces of the previous few years fall into place.

Those aches and pains he attributed to a life playing sports and competing at the highest level, the lethargy he felt in the gym, the migraines, the nausea. Everything that felt like it was just his body telling him it was time to walk away and move on to something else could be traced back to his contracting Lyme disease.

“I was fighting for my ability to fight, and I didn’t know it for 2.5 years,” said Miller, who believes he contracted the disease in the spring or summer of 2013. “I definitely had some tough times in 2015, 2016.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“I was just doing some media and they were talking to my wife, and hearing her talk about it was rough because she went through it all too, with a young family and here I was, kind of worthless. It was hard,” he added, taking a big, deep breath to settle himself. “She’s amazing, and I don’t give her enough appreciate for it.”

He smiled and laughed, humour the best means to deflect the real emotions evident in his eyes, clear in the tone of his voice, before quickly adding, “but don’t tell her I said that.”

The laughter continued, but the genuine appreciation and anguish for putting his wife, Angel, through those years rang out louder.

Miller beat Gomi at UFC 200, blowing through the former Pride FC champion in just over two minutes to snap his two-fight skid.

It was the first of three straight victories to wrap up an active 2016 campaign, one that saw him finally start getting back to delivering the type of performances fans had come to expect from the battle-hardened contender. But just as things were rounding back into form, they went sideways again; not from a health perspective, but rather in terms of the results he was collecting inside the cage.

2017 began with a majority decision loss to Dustin Poirier in a competitive, entertaining scrap at UFC 208, and was followed by a unanimous decision loss to Anthony Pettis five months later at UFC 213. In October, he ventured to Sao Paulo and garnered a similar result against Francisco Trinaldo.

A knockout loss to Dan Hooker in Atlantic City pushed his losing streak to four at the outset of his 2018 campaign and after getting back in the win column with a victory over Alex White in September, Charles Oliveira gained a measure of revenge on Miller for halting his unbeaten rise, submitting him in the first round at the end of 2018, just as Miller had done to him several years earlier.

“It’s not easy, aging as an athlete, and that was one of my things with Lyme that really (expletive) me up is that it took away my strengths,” said Miller, reflecting on the third act of what has been a four-act career spent competing on the biggest stage in the sport. “I couldn’t go into the gym and sprint and push and do those things. I beat a lot of guys who are very talented fighters simply by stepping on the gas pedal and out-pacing them, out-working them, and that got stolen away from me.

“Part of this latter thing is figuring out how we can do this, how to make myself as dangerous as possible with what I’m working with today,” continued Miller, who fought his way out of that slump with a pair of victories in 2019. “I feel like that is an issue for some of my peers. They want to be the guy they were 10 years ago, and it’s like, ‘You’re not. You can still be dangerous, but you’ve got to try to work with what you’ve got.’”

Around the same time he started working to figure out how he needed to train and fight as an older lightweight, the idea of competing at UFC 300 started to worm its way into his head.

He was one of two men to compete at both UFC 100 and UFC 200 along with Brock Lesnar, and the idea of making it to all three landmark events seemed like the kind of unrealistic but incredibly cool target that he’s always liked to set for himself.

“I think it was probably early 2020 or end of 2019,” Miller said when asked when he first started thinking about UFC 300 as a target. “I’m hard on myself, I’m my own biggest critic, and I like to set goals that are basically unattainable, for the most part. I want something where it’s like, ‘Man, I’ve got to do things perfectly in order for this to work out.’

“I’ve always been performance driven, to a detriment, and I kind of threw it out there early 2020. I looked at the calendar — ‘I’m gonna be (bleeping) old, but let’s see if we can do it’ — and things started jiving towards the end of 2020.”

While the in-cage results were still inconsistent — the twin first-round submission victories in 2019 over Jason Gonzalez and Clay Guida were followed by a 1-3 stretch over his next four fights — the results in the gym started to come together and give the veteran hope he would be able to continue competing, and potentially achieve the unrealistic goal he’d set for himself and floated out to the MMA masses, who immediately latched onto it as something had to come to pass.

“The 300 thing, I didn’t think we’d make it, honestly,” Miller said, laughing, a week before departing for Las Vegas, where he’ll face off with Bobby Green in the second bout of Saturday’s historic fight card at T-Mobile Arena. “It was, ‘Do I want to be fighting when I’m 40? Not really!’

“But here we are again and we’re making it work.”

That reputation for being someone that never turns down a fight, never turns down an opponent — for being “Jim F****** Miller” — put the veteran in an awkward position when the UFC brass called to get his take on this weekend’s matchup with Green following his third-round submission win over Gabriel Benitez in January.

“I love the fight, and I’ve loved the fight for the last 10 years that we’ve been trying to make it,” Miller said of the pairing, chuckling.

The first time the duo were scheduled to face one another was April 26, 2014 at UFC 172, but Green was forced to withdraw a week prior to the event. They were re-booked opposite one another nearly seven years later at UFC 258, but Green collapsed after weighing in and the fight was scrapped. A third fight was scheduled for UFC 276 in the summer of 2022 but once again Green was forced to withdraw.

“There was that moment when I heard his name that I was like, ‘Gah!’ Sean Shelby, Hunter (Campbell) and Dana White called me up and were like, ‘What about Bobby Green?’ And I was like, ‘Boss, he’s pulled out three times!’

“I had literally asked Sean not to offer him again after the last one, because I don’t have time; I don’t have the time to miss opportunities,” continued Miller, shaking his head. “Shit happens and I get it, I totally understand, but they twisted my arm and I was like, ‘You send me the contract, you know I’m gonna sign it, so just send it. Why even call me?’”

While initially reluctant — for very understandable reasons — Miller has come around to the idea of the matchup with Green this weekend, recognizing the opportunity that a fight with the equally popular veteran brings.

“Bobby’s been around for a long (expletive) time and I’ve got a ton of respect for him, and I love the fight, think it’s a great fight,” he said of the matchup. “And there is a part of me that wonders, ‘Am I one or two away?’”

Miller takes a beat to let the question hang in the air before continuing.

“Potentially.”

The lightweight title picture is certainly cloudy at the moment yet Saturday’s event could bring some clarity, and although a championship opportunity for Miller doesn’t hang in the balance, a win over the current No. 14-ranked lightweight to extend his winning streak to three would certainly make things more interesting.

“Bisping wasn’t ranked No. 1 or 2 when he got his opportunity, and he (expletive) seized it!” he said, citing former middleweight champ Michael Bisping as precedent for a potential late-career championship opportunity. “So for me, the biggest thing is being available. If I’m healthy and available, who the heck knows what’s gonna happen? My job is to be healthy, in good shape, ready to go.

“I think the fans would get behind it,” added Miller, excitement coursing through his voice. “We’ve see fighters coming off losses get opportunities for the title, so the 41-year-old Jim ‘F******’ Miller? Let’s do it.

“That would be — you would see a man with absolutely nothing to lose. I think that’s one of the things that making me dangerous: I’m gonna go out, have fun, and embrace this. I would be cheesing the whole way to the Octagon if something like that happened, but I’ve got work to do.”

Regardless of how things play out on Saturday night, the fact Miller made this happen — that he’s remained active, competitive, successful — and turned his appearance on UFC 300 into one of the bigger stories surrounding the landmark card is a testament to his tenacity and the respect he commands within the sport.

“It’s uh… it’s pretty awesome, honestly,” said Miller, stumbling over his words when asked to reflect on the accomplishment and totality of what he’s achieved. “I’m not gonna lie. I’m not gonna downplay it. It is pretty awesome.

“There has been a lot of support from my team and my family to get me here, and I appreciate the heck out of the fans putting pressure on the UFC, wanting me to be on the card, begging for me to be on the card.

“It’s…” he said, attempting to continue, but unable to find the words. “It’s kind of weird because I feel like if I can maintain what I’m doing, fight the way I’m fighting, I can do this; I can fight the best, I can get myself back into the rankings, fighting to potentially finally get my opportunity to fight for and win that title.

“On the flip side, the legend is already built, the reputation is already built,” added Miller, smiling, proud of the legacy he’s forged in the Octagon.

As it stands, the now 40-year-old holds the record for both the most fights (43) and the most wins (26) in UFC history, two ahead of Andrei Arlovski in the appearances column and three up on Arlovski and retired gunslinger Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in terms of overall victories.

But anyone expecting this to be Miller’s swan song haven’t been paying attention, not only to his recent results, but the myriad times the veteran has talked about his retirement plans in recent years.

In addition to entering this weekend’s matchup with Green on a two-fight winning streak, the popular lightweight is 5-1 over his last six outings overall, and has earned stoppages in each of his last nine victories. His most recent decision win was back in his UFC 205 clash with Thiago Alves at Madison Square Garden.

And while others like to keep their plans secret and spring it on the fans and media immediately after a fight, Miller has always said he’ll announce his intentions well in advance so he can soak in the moment and enjoy it with everyone before making the walk one final time.

He’s also now set a firm exit marker for himself as well.

“Here’s the deal: personally, I don’t want to fight any more than 50 times in the UFC, so if we’re talking before my 50th UFC fight, know that it’s my last one, no matter how things are going,” he said with a smirk. “This one will be 44, so at the pace that I like to fight, that’s another two years. I think I can handle that.

“I think a lot of athletes aren’t comfortable talking about the end of their careers, and it’s because we’re always trying to accomplish more, but like we said, the reputation is built; the legacy is built,” continued Miller. “I can add to it and as long as I go out and fight the way I’m capable of fighting, I’m just going to add to that legacy, but I’m partly ready for the day.”

Despite being “partly ready” to pack things in, he’s not fully there yet, and until that day or UFC fight No. 50 comes, the resilient and respected fighter will continue marching to the Octagon and giving every bit of himself possible in an effort to secure another victory.

“The goal is always to go out and perform at my best,” offered Miller. “I’d rather go out and fight as hard as I can than fight lazy and point people out and just get the W — which is stupid as a professional athlete!

“I have no problem with other people doing that, but the guy in the mirror won’t let me,” he said, laughing. “I come from a pressure-based, top jiu-jitsu style where it’s like, ‘Get on top, cook the guy,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’m gonna recklessly attack!’ just because I want to make this guy quit, not just get my hand raised.”

Of course that’s still his approach.

Of course that’s the way things will always be.

What else would you expect from Jim F****** Miller?