Jim Miller: Why I don’t want my kids to fight in MMA today

Jim Miller started fighting in 2005, and less than three years later was in the UFC. On Saturday night at UFC on ESPN+ 8, he submitted Jason Gonzalez in Round 1, setting the record for most lightweight submissions. And for the first time, he had all four children watching live. In the post-fight media interview, Miller reflected on his career, and the sport in general.

My kids see a lot of what I do, and I want them to have a good example – not only in this sport, but kind of in this world, said Miller as transcribed by Matt Erickson and Fernanda Prates for MMAjunkie. We’re stuck in this place where the most successful people just go about getting attention in the worst ways, so I just try to lead by example. It was great to have them there and have them see it and have them be part of it. I don’t want my kids to fight – not with the state of MMA right now, in particular.

I want them to learn to defend themselves. I want them to appreciate what their dad and their uncle did and the heights that we reached in this sport. It’s cool to have them there; I’m happy to have them there. But, at the same time, I get my hands taped up and slide on those gloves and bite down on that mouthpiece for me, because I still enjoy it. I could provide for them in other ways, but it’s cool for them to see it.

Miller believes he contracted Lyme disease in 2013, and struggled with it, undiagnosed for a period. The joint pain and foggy brain are part of combat sports, so by 2015 when he was feeling them acutely, the connection took a while to make, and by the time he did, he had lost four in a row. Now he can train fully, and is 2-1.

Now that I feel like I’m getting back to being more well-rounded and training as an athlete again, I know that I can compete with the best in the world, he said. And I know that I have to earn that opportunity again and I’m willing to do that. We’ll see. We’ll see where the road goes. I’m just as interested as you to find out.

And when will Miller retire?

I’m going to know when it’s going to be my last fight. I’m pretty sure you guys are going to know, too,” he said. “I don’t want it to be because I had a $#!@y camp and I fought like $#!@ – ‘You know what, I’m not doing this anymore’ and be emotional inside the cage and do it that way. I want to know going in there.

I think it’s going to be a great night for me, because having that lifted off my shoulders, that I don’t have to do it again, is going to be awesome. It takes a lot; it does. It takes a lot to grind through camp and to deal with the ups and downs. I get home from a hard day of training and I’m tired and beat up and then my kids want to wrestle and it’s like – you try to do it as much as you can, but at the same time, ‘I can’t tonight, I can’t.’ And I hate having to say that.