Miletich: We were ‘one big, angry family’
Pat Miletich: “So hopefully 100 years from now, somebody will come across my name and go, hey, that guy must have been a pretty tough guy.”
The newest member of the UFC Hall of Fame, Pat Miletich, 48, appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and looked back on being the greatest fighter/coach the sport has ever seen.
In 1998, Miletich became the inaugural UFC welterweight champion. Then from 2001 to 2003 Miletich Martial Arts gym had heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia, welterweight champion Matt Hughes, and light weight champion Jens Pulver, when there were only five weight divisions in the league.
“I remember winning the UFC tournament,” said Miletich as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti. “And that was obviously the goal, was to get into the UFC when I first started fighting, winning the tournament, coming out and having people ask me to sign autographs for them. I remember signing my first autograph after I won the tournament while walking back to the locker room, and actually a teardrop fell on the paper. That’s the one thing I remember. A teardrop fell on my signature while I was writing it, and I was like… wow.
“It was a nice dream realized. But I’ll tell you what, you talk about tears coming to your eyes? Jens Pulver, Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia, Dave Menne, those guys winning and stuff like that, so many other guys winning big fights, it’s kind of hard to explain the joy that you get out of coaching a guy to a world title and seeing them change their lives.
“When that whole group was assembled and fighting in the same room, training together, it was just one big, angry family.”
“Gosh, probably my favorite Jens Pulver moment was when (6-foot-3, 205-pound) Sam Hoger had been at the gym training all day. He had not trained with the team; he’d been there training all day though and had not been in practice for a little while. He was kind of doing his own thing. And Sam Hoger put his equipment in his bag as all the fighters were getting ready to spar. Jens screamed at him, ‘where the hell are you going?’ as he was walking out, and he said, ‘I’m going home.’ Jens said, ‘No, you’re not. Put your bag down and get back in here and train with the team.’
“Sam didn’t quite understand the concept at the time of what Jens was saying. Jens was saying no, you haven’t been training because you haven’t been training with us, and Jens was trying to help him understand the team aspect, that if you’re going to train here, you need to train with the team all the time. And Sam said, ‘No, I’m leaving, I’m going home.’ Jens ran over to him, ripped his boxing gloves off, went chest-to-chest with Sam, looked up at Sam and said, ‘You either put your equipment on right now or I’m going to knock you out where you stand.’ So Sam looked around the room and I said, ‘Your decision, Sam. Go ahead and make it.’ And Sam put his gloves on and stayed, and from then on Sam trained with the team.”
“I’m very thankful for the life I’ve led. And I’m very thankful for the great things that have happened to me. I guess it’s nice to have your name etched in history, either way. So hopefully 100 years from now, somebody will come across my name and go, hey, that guy must have been a pretty tough guy.”
