Athletes
Jim Miller Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
Ahead Of His 46th UFC Appearance, Veteran Lightweight Discuss His Journey And The Privilege Of Still Getting To Compete At UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes On April 12
There is a clip from the Netflix series Starting 5 that has been making the rounds for the last year now that has become a touchstone for those that see it and understand the message being presented.
In the clip, the director of the segment is sitting with Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, speaking about the team’s star, Jayson Tatum, and says, “It seems to me that Jayson has to deal with unfair criticism” and before he is able to get another word out, Mazzulla interrupts him.
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“Gets to deal with,” he says, offering a correction to the director’s statement that not only illustrates the different ways of looking at things generally, but speaks to the greater understanding of what it means to compete at the highest level, on the biggest stage of your given sport; a message that is applicable to all endeavors, really.
“He gets to deal wth it,’ continues Mazzulla, a massive UFC fan that has attended several events and forged close bonds with some of MMA’s top coaches. “It’s the ultimate compliment, and that’s what we talk about. This is what you asked for. You asked to be one of the best players in the NBA, on the best team in the NBA, with an opportunity to be an icon for the league for a long, long time.
“This is what you asked for.”
Jim Miller looks at his career in the UFC much the same way.
The veteran lightweight, who faces off with Chase Hooper this weekend at UFC 314 in Miami, is one of the promotion’s elder statesmen, and holds the records for both the most appearances and most wins in UFC history. Saturday’s fight will be his 46th trip into the Octagon, and despite the fact that he’s going to compete four more times at most after this one, the 41-year-old still approaches things with a mindset and outlook that echoes Mazzulla’s perspective on Tatum and pressure.
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“At maximum, I have five more opportunities, and I’ve said it plenty of times: I don’t want to fight more than 50 fights in the UFC,” begins Miller, white hair naturally streaking the center part of his beard, accentuating his standing as “the grandpa of the lightweight division” as he puts it. “It’s ridiculous to even say that, but I don’t want to continue after another five.
“I’ve been embracing this thing for a long time now because I was this close to retiring. I feel like I got that second wind in my career because I figured out what was going wrong — it wasn’t me, it was something else — and so I’ve been really just trying to embrace this journey and enjoy it.
“I get to fight,” he says with a little added emphasis, the opportunity to still do what he loves at his age, after everything he’s been through feeling like a privilege that he refuses to take for granted. “I get to fight in the UFC for the 46th time on April 12th, and that’s frickin’ awesome."
Miller made his first walk at UFC 89 on October 18, 2008. Hooper, the streaking Dana White’s Contender Series graduate he’ll share the Octagon with this weekend at Kaseya Center, turned nine years old a month prior.
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He rose through the ranks and got close to fighting for the lightweight title a couple of times, landing on the wrong side of the results in key bouts with the likes of Benson Henderson, Nathan Diaz, and Donald Cerrone in bouts where,despite injuries and illnesses, the New Jersey native still did his absolute best to give his opponents hell.
The loss to Cerrone kicked off a run of four defeats in five fights that had him ready to retire at UFC 200. He was constantly fatigued, sore, and unable to perform the way he wanted to, both in the gym and inside the cage, and after a decade in the sport and several of those years competing against the absolute best in the world, Miller thought it was just his body’s way of telling him it was time to call it a day and move on to something else.
Just a couple days before he sauntered out to the Octagon to face Takanori Gomi at the UFC’s bicentennial, Miller learned that he was suffering from Lyme disease; the symptoms that felt like an aging athlete staring down his own mortality all explained by the tick-borne illness.
He’s fought another 22 times since that bout with the Japanese legend, which he won by technical knockout a little over two minutes into the opening round, and looks at each of them as a gift that he wouldn’t have received had his life not taken the twists and turns that it did.
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“I wouldn’t still be fighting if I didn’t go through the struggles that I did go through,” says Miller, who enters Saturday’s contest off a first-round submission win over Damon Jackson in November at UFC 309. “I’ve had to change the way I train and the way I fight, and I think that really has helped me now as a 41-year-old to be like ‘I’m not the athlete I was.’
“I beat a lot of guys that were very talented just by outworking them. Who knows how things would have happened had the circumstances not gone the way the did, but I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t f****** trade it for the world because my life would have changed completely, and if my life changed completely, I don’t know that I would have my second two (kids) and I wouldn’t trade it for a moment.”
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In a sport where so many competitors fixate on what could have been and where things didn’t break their way, Miller’s view of things is refreshing and commendable, as well as being entirely genuine.
Sure, he’d love to know what would have happened if he wasn’t dealing with mononucleosis and a kidney infection the night he faced Henderson or a busted up foot when he fought Diaz, but everything went the way it did, his personal and professional lives twisted and turned in different ways, and he’s still here, 41 years young, ready to compete on the biggest stage in the sport for the 46th time, believing that all of this has all been preparation for whatever life is going to throw at him once he finally hangs up his four-ounce gloves.
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“It’s been a wild ride — it really, really has — but here I am,” he says with a smirk and a chuckle. “I’m 41 and I still get to do this. I still get to train and compete for a living.
“The way I’ve always looked at it — and it’s a really weird mindset to have as a professional fighter — is that all these trials and tribulations are preparing me for something else. I’ve been knocked out, I’ve been subbed out, and I’ve been beaten up for 15 minutes; it ain’t that bad. I’ve come out of fights forever changed, and it is really not that bad.
“I would take that every day to not have to go through some of the things my peers in fighting have gone through, other parents have gone through,” continues the proud father of four. “My only hope is that I can pick up the experience from all of this — the positive and the negative — in order to be able to handle whatever life throws at me next.
“Because that’s the only guarantee,” he adds, “is that life is gonna be f***** up and you’re gonna have to handle some s***.”
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But for right now, and at most four more fights after this, the s*** Miller has to handle is navigating an eight-week fight camp without injury and stepping into the Octagon against another world-class talent.
This weekend, it’s Hooper, who has been lights out since shifting to lightweight, winning four straight and finishing each of his last three opponents. Next time out, it’s going to be someone different, and Miller will still approach things the same way: filled with gratitude and excitement, eager to step into the fray one more time, chasing the two things that have continued to elude him thus far.
“That thing, that unicorn — besides the kimura — is that perfect fight,” he says when asked about items that remain on his personal bucket list, referencing his favorite submission and a move he hits in the gym routinely, but has yet to secure in a UFC fight.
“I’ve gone out and armbarred a third-degree black belt in the first round, from my guard, which you would think was a perfect outing, but in my mind, it wasn’t. I’ve gone out and had the Fight of the Year on a five-week training camp, but that wasn’t perfect either.
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“It’s kind of like writing a book, writing the story, where there has to be a little adversity, but not too much, and I’m still trying to find that one.”
He pauses.
“I don’t think that I ever will.”
He may not, but for the next five fights, you can be sure that Jim Miller is going to have a helluva time trying to chase down that perfect fight, and he’ll appreciate every single second of it, no matter how things shake out.
UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes took place live from Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on April 12, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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