Jim Miller has seen some things in the sport. He’s not only closing in on 60 professional fights, but both 50 fights and 30 wins inside the UFC are in sight. Those have functioned as loose goals for the Sparta, New Jersey native as his fight career reaches it’s final stages. However, he recognizes that nothing out there is guaranteed.
“There’s tons of miles on my body and I do understand that it’s like, hey, if something stupid happens and I blow out my knee or I blow out my shoulder, at this point, I’m not coming back from that,” Miller said. “I’ve been lucky enough to keep those types of injuries away. The plan is to continue to do that and to train intelligently – try to really maximize what I have left and do the right things.”
And to Miller, there is really no rhyme or reason as to when people go down hurt. You could be in phenomenal shape and doing something silly and miss out on time. That’s a consideration that he keeps in mind.
“I’ve seen guys that I’ve trained with, their careers get shortened or their careers get paused because of nonsense injuries, right? One of my training partners a couple of years ago tore his Achilles playing flag football,” he recalled. “Absolute stud, undefeated, one of my best training partners and he sidelined for a year because he was cold and playing flag football, right? So it’s like something like that could happen at any time.”
Despite those things always lurking around him, Miller has been mostly healthy throughout his career. The secret for that fact? Miller says that it’s more simple than you realize.
“There probably is a secret. I should probably shut up,” Miller said with a laugh. “No, honestly, I think it’s just that I’ve always focused my training around, not that I fight conservatively, but nobody likes getting hit, right? You don’t want to absorb it. So my training style, my striking style is always, I try to keep my hands up and, and keep my head between my hands so that I’m not getting caught outside my guard.”
He also attributes some of his toughness to his upbringing. Not only has it helped him to stay healthy and not get hurt, but it’s also helped him stay in fights – having only been finished in five fights over a career like his.
“I think honestly – it’s my upbringing. As a kid, we were just doing stupid stuff. We learned how to take falls and we’ve learned how to dust yourself off and get back up,” he said. “In those fights I’ve never looked for the way out. I’ve always had in my head, even the times where I have been finished – there’s gotta be a way out of this.”
His next chance to take a step towards that elusive goal comes at UFC 328, which taked place this Saturday. Miller will take on Jared Gordon as part of the prelim portion of the card. The card starts at 5pm EST and will air on Paramount+.
