Miletich on Big Tim Sylvia, Jon Jones, unions & Lawler wrecking GSP

Pat Miletich created the blueprint for today’s mixed martial arts – be good enough to hang in the gym with national level competitors in wrestling, BJJ, and stand up striking, doing their specialty. Pat was the first man who did that as part of his regular training.

In a stellar interview with Submission Radio, the UFC Hall of Famer offered his thoughts on Robbie Lawler’s ascendance, Tim Sylvia’s retirement, Jon Jones’ drug situation, the MMA lawsuit, and why he isn’t very interested in an MMA Union.

Miletich began the sport during a harder time, when things were far less understood, and you had to fight multiple times in a night to win. He was asked if the UFC was better when it had tournaments.

I think to a certain extent there is some truth to that,” said Miletich. “Because fighting in tournaments; I had fought in three tournaments before I started doing single fights only. But the tournament aspect of things, I’ll tell you what man it’s a blast, but a ton of pressure. You’re watching the guys fight on the other side of the bracket and figuring out how you’re going to beat them, while you’re getting ready for a fight, and fighting three fights in one night for two of my tournaments against guys that were much bigger. You know there’s a lot of strategy involved in that, and also do you go out and try to conserve energy and stay healthy and just win? Or, because back than in the first two tournaments I fought in there were no weight divisions, no time limits, none of that, and I was smaller than everyone else.

“So I said to myself, I gotta go out and try and dispatch these guys as quickly as I can so that I’m fresh for the next round. It worked out that way. I was able to beat guys pretty quickly and the other guys were having wars on the other side of the bracket, you know 20 and 30 minute fights, and it helped me considerably.

Earlier this month Miletich Martial Arts protege and former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia retired, a move Pat supported.

I think things happen for a reason,” he said. “You know an MRI came back that showed some abnormalities in his brain and that’s never a good thing, and obviously his weight had ballooned up quite a bit. He’s 370 pounds which obviously he shouldn’t be at that weight; he should be walking around at no more than 300 pounds, even less in my mind for him to remain healthy throughout life probably.

“But you know the injuries that a guy sustains over all the years, and the bigger guys are more susceptible to the lower back problems, the hips, the knees, the feet, and all those sort of things. And as you get older it gets harder and harder to work the weight off. Especially when you’re beat up, banged up, your lower extremities, you can’t go out and do road work, you can’t do things that you used to do to burn the calories, and so once you get to that point obviously it’s probably a good idea to hang it up.

Another Miletich protege, Robbie Lawler, is now the UFC welterweight champion, after a career that started in 2001/

I think that the main thing is Robbie when he trains, he trains very hard and he’s got good work ethic,” said Pat. “He’s an exceptional athlete, he’s very smart, he is very observant, he watches the sport, he watches boxing, he watches kickboxing, and he studies things. He is generally a pretty quiet guy, but he’s always thinking, and that’s something.

“But you know the fact that he … having been at 185 pounds for quite a while after his first UFC stint – and it’s not like anyone at 185 pounds came out and ran him over – and you gotta remember those guys are cutting down from 230 pounds some of them, you know. He was fighting guys that were naturally much bigger than him and beating some of them. And nobody…like I said, any of the world class guys were just coming up and just running him over. So I knew, you know myself and a few other people were in his ear for all those years saying ‘you need to drop back down to 170, that’s where you belong, and go in and make a run, and win a world title, and take care of yourself and your family.’

“And once he made that decision to drop down to 170 and got signed to the UFC, I pretty much knew that he was going to wreak havoc on that division. A lot of people laughed at me publicly, in the media, on Twitter, you know on Facebook – ‘Lawler is going to get killed by Josh Koscheck. He’s going to get destroyed by this guy, by that guy’ and you know he won and did his work, and now finally has that belt. So I’m really happy for him.

I think at the time Georges St. Pierre was the champion and I told people, and a lot of people laughed at me about that, but I said Robbie Lawler is the worst possible match up for George St. Pierre. Robbie will absolutely wreck him. And now obviously we didn’t get to find out about that match up because Georges has stepped away for a while, or maybe for good, we don’t know. But Robbie is a bad match up for almost anybody because of his skill set and how dangerous he is and how hard he hits.

Georges was a guy that was very good at the transition game, very good at making people think they’re in a boxing match and hitting takedowns when people least expect it. [He was] very good at holding people down, very good at controlling people, and pretty dang good with his jab and setting stuff up off of that jab. But Robbie is a much more refined striker than Georges is. He hits much harder and Georges certainly would not be able to hold Rob down and ride out a decision. It just wouldn’t happen. So given those two things, it would not be a good match up for Georges period.

Miletich also touched on the controversial issues in the sport, including Jon Jones’ cocaine use.

I was very surprised that he tested positive for cocaine,” said Pat. “I mean cocaine is such a destructive drug and such a nasty addiction that people can get into. I’ve not seen it amongst a lot of athletes and certainly not guys that are good at MMA. It’s such a bad drug that I’m shocked that someone who’s that good of an athlete and is able to perform at that level is doing it. I don’t know how much he did it, but you know that’s number one.

“Number two is, who are Jon Jones’ handlers that are allowing him to hang with out with people that are giving him cocaine at, whether it’s parties or wherever the hell he’s at in the first place? So that’s another thing, that people who are around him that realize that there’s a problem need to say ‘listen, you need to maybe look at getting different representation, hanging out with a different group of people’ and that’s something that has to come about.

“And you never want to be surrounded by a bunch of yes men; and I think I was lucky in that aspect where the friends that I had, that I hung out with, if I did anything that was going to be a mistake and detrimental to my life, they’d had no problem calling me out on it. And you know that’s a true friend. Someone that will get in your face and say ‘listen, you may be the world champ, but you’re screwing up your life right now. And you need to wake up’ and that’s important. So I think that some of those people that are around Jon, need to evaluate what people in that group need to go. So that’s probably the first thing.

Miletich also discussed the UFC lawsuit, noting how little money an entry level fighter actually makes.

Well in terms of the contracts, you know it’s a situation where one organization having a great deal of power and making you sign a contract that includes signing away your likeness and the rights to that likeness for as long as the company wants to use it,” said Miletich. “Things like that. The champion’s clause; where if I have the belt underneath an organization, I can’t walk and look for [another company] at the end of my contract. If I’m a champion there’s always another fight that I have to fulfill no matter what, and there’s a few other things in the contract that, you know, that I haven’t looked at one of them for a long time, but I’m assuming for the most part that they’re similar to that. And a lot of guys have complained about it of late who are still athletes and they concur with some of those things.

“So the restrictive nature of the contracts are pretty tough to deal with I think for the athletes, and also on top of that, not being able to get the sponsors that you want unless those sponsors pay a fee to the promoter or the promotion before they can sponsor athletes, and it goes on down the line. So it makes it tough for the athletes.

“You have to figure, if I’m getting whatever it is now 8,000 to show up in any organization, my medicals cost quite a bit of money to go through, I have to pay my manager, I have to pay my trainers, I have to pay taxes. So by the time I get done getting paid, I actually might be in the hole a little bit. So it’s pretty tough. And on top of that now with restricting sponsors, it’s very tough for the guys trying to come up and break in through the upper ranks.

All that said, Miletich does not necessarily see a union as the solution.

I think a union is very tough to pull off because of the independent contractor status of the athletes,” he said. “It’s not like they are members of a team that pays them as they do in baseball and football and things like that. So it’s very difficult to do that. What are the union fees going to be? You know? When guys are only fighting four times a year, three times a year, some two times a year, how do you work that out? What are the benefits of it?

“I’m not necessarily a guy that would support a fighters union. If the contracts were adjusted to be more fair to the athletes and give them more power in the future in the direction of their career, I think that’s sufficient. I’m a guy that’s a big believer in the free market system and the guys that perform the best get paid the most and put butts in seats. so that’s really what I comes down to. So [I’m] not necessarily a guy that supports a fighters union, and on top of that it would be very tough to pull off.