12 Questions for Pat Miletich

[Tony]

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Back to Fighting

When you’ve been in the game as long as Pat Miletich has, you need to be either training yourself or training someone else for a fight. If you’re not, you feel like something is not right, that the rhythm of life is disrupted. That’s part of why the 40-year-old Miletich (28-7-2), the UFC’s first welterweight champion and founder of the once-dominant Miletich Fighting Systems camp, took a fight against Thomas “Wildman” Denny. The fight on Thursday night will headline the latest offering from Monte Cox’s “Adrenaline” promotion, which airs live from Moline, Ill., on HDNet.

Two years after a swift loss via guillotine choke to Renzo Gracie in the IFL, Miletich, one of MMA’s most tenured sages, spoke to Sherdog about his return, Brock Lesnar, the illness at UFC 35 that allegedly caused accidents and hallucinations in the cage, and the future of his heralded camp.

Q: What moved you to take a fight now?
A: Well, it’s a couple of different reasons. I’m tired of not competing, something I’ve done since I was five years old. It basically drives me insane to not have goals and not work towards things. I love the adrenaline, love fighting, love the crowd, the fans, things like that. I love the camaraderie of training with a lot of guys and everybody working toward a goal.

Also it’s Monte Cox, who has been my manager for my entire career, doing the Adrenaline shows. It’s nice to be part of that. The show probably wouldn’t have taken place here in the Quad Cities, my hometown, had I not fought on the card. And so that would be one less fight that my guys get. It’s a televised bout, it gives those guys more exposure, so hopefully it will help those guys be seen by more eyes and get some contracts for those guys. They’re all very tough, world-class fighters on the card from my gym. I want to see those guys’ careers move on and do great things.

Q: Why Thomas Denny?
A: It was just something that Monte came up with. He just said, “Thomas Denny’s an exciting guy, he comes out, he gets after it, he sells tickets and puts on a good show, and I think you guys can go out and get after it right away and make the crowd stand up,” and I said that’s fine.

Thomas and I have known each other for years. He and I have always been real friendly toward each other. I never, ever had an issue with him. We always have gotten along real well. As far as his fighting style, I think he’s a pretty well-rounded guy. He got two takedowns on Nick Diaz, which isn’t easy to do. And he slugged with him. That first round was going at a pretty high pace. I’m kind of expecting the same type of thing out of him for this fight, to come out and get after me right away. Which is good, because it will wake me up and make me snap out of my ring rust right away.

Why Thomas Denny?
Renzo’s a guy that I really, really like a lot. Every time I see him we give each other a hug. He’s just that kind of guy. Punching him was actually … he was one of those few people where you’re like, “I really don’t want to hit this guy.” But with Thomas, even though we get along real well, Thomas is the kind of guy that’s going to stand and trade with you. So I’m not going to have a problem hitting Thomas. And I expect to hit him a lot.

Q: Who are your main training partners these days?
A: Jesse Lennox, Ryan McGivern, L.C. Davis, Junior Hernandez, who is an incredible boxer, really good at grappling. I’ve also had the help of Pedro Silveira and Rodrigo Uzeda, both very good jiu-jitsu black belts who have been coaching me on the ground and grappling with me a lot, getting me back to basically the way I used to flow on the ground. I used to feel like I could hang with anyone on the ground.

I’ve never really had anyone coach me and train me for a fight ever in my career. I’ve just been part of a team basically and kind of led the practices and all that sort of stuff as a coach. Kind of like Paul Newman in the movie “Slap Shot” so to speak, kind of a playing coach, a fighting coach. It’s been nice to actually have people spending the time coaching me. It’s something that I’ve never experienced really in MMA.

Q: What’s the state of Miletich Fighting Systems in the wake of some of its top names leaving, like Matt Hughes, Robbie Lawler and Jens Pulver? It seems like its dominance has waned.
A: Well, we just have a second generation of monsters who are coming in now who are very well-rounded, very good fighters. Ben Rothwell, Ryan McGivern, Mike Ciesnolevicz, L.C. Davis, Junior Hernandez, Jesse Lennox. Those are the guys that are going to be the champions of tomorrow. It’s just a rebuilding type process. The younger guys are just taking over as the leaders. I was wondering when that was going to happen. I kind of sat around and I waited for it. I did nudge a little bit and tell guys that they need to step it up and become leaders. They’re doing that now. That’s pretty cool to see.

A lot of the older guys have moved on and gotten financial gain from opening their own places and things like that, which you can’t blame people for, for wanting to move out on their own. I mean those guys, all of them were basically with me for 10 years. I was sad to see those guys go, but at the same time guys have to go out on their own. That’s just the natural process of things, and it doesn’t bother me. Matt (Hughes) and I just e-mailed each other the other day and talked and he’s going to be coming up to the Adrenaline fight here in the Quad Cities and hang out with us and stuff. It will be nice see him and Robbie (Lawler).

[Tony]

Q: What occupies most of your time when you’re not fighting?
A: Family for the most part. And other things with business ventures and stuff like that. For about two years now, a guy who did marketing for me … has been sending out mass e-mails and building Web sites with slanderous stuff about me and my gym. A judge handed down a $2.1 million judgment against him for what he’s done to me. The guy … is on the run in California now and still up to his tricks, sending out mass e-mails to people saying that I’m closing my gym and all that stuff.

Everything that you read, all these negative things that are going out to everybody, understand who it’s coming from and that basically none of it’s true. I told him he was no longer going to be part of the organization because he was threatening lawsuits around people that I did business with.

Q: You were one of the first people in MMA to scout UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar when he came through MFS briefly. What are your thoughts on what we’ve seen from him?
A: Seeing him for the first time in person, you could tell that he was a great piece of clay to have in your hands as a trainer. (He’s) very big, very explosive, great athlete, great wrestler obviously. It was pretty obvious that as long as he got with somebody who was a good trainer, an experienced trainer, he was going to turn into a pretty scary guy. Greg Nelson up in Minnesota is one of the best trainers in the world. I’m happy that Brock was able to land there with him. I would have loved to have had Brock down here, but I think Brock wanted to stay closer to home up in Minnesota.

Randy (Couture) did very well given the size difference and the wrestling ability that Brock has. I think Brock fought a smart fight, didn’t go crazy and just waited for his chance. When Randy went down, you’ve got to imagine a fist that’s wider than your head hitting you. It’s not going to feel good. He’s just a big, powerful guy, and for Randy at 220-something pounds, that’s a tall order. And I’m a guy just like everybody else who learned to not bet against Randy. Randy’s a guy that pulls off a lot of great fights that people thought he was going to lose. I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I had a feeling that Brock was going to be able to win the fight.

Q: What have been some of the fun stories and lasting scenes from the MFS camp over the years?
A: There’s been just so many fun times on the road with the guys going and doing different fun stuff. Just going to gun ranges and shooting guns or hanging out riding the waves at the wave pool at Mandalay Bay and goofing around and tripping the lifeguards and stuff like that. Hughes and I and Robbie used to do that a lot. We’d body surf on the waves and go flying past the life guards and pull their legs out from underneath them, just having fun with them. They knew that we were just joking around and stuff, so they’d laugh.

God, I remember one UFC, I think it was New Jersey or Connecticut at the Mohegan Sun (Reporter’s Note: UFC 35, January 2002), when everybody in the show got sick with a really violent flu. (Kevin) Randleman actually wore I think three pairs of fight shorts because he was crapping himself during his fight, having diarrhea. Dave Menne on that card fought Murilo Bustamante. Dave was so dehydrated from having the flu and vomiting and diarrhea that he was hallucinating during the fight. Jens and Matt Hughes got violently ill on that trip. I got lucky, I was one of the few people who didn’t get sick out of all the fighters, the camps, the trainers, the TV production people. I mean you name it, everybody got this flu. It just took off like wildfire through the hotel. It was crazy.

Q: Can you talk a little about your history with the IFL as a team coach and fighter and what you think happened there? We saw the rise and fall really. What’s your assessment?
A: I think the team thing, instead of going with the camp thing right off the bat, might have caused some problems with kind of the hokey names of the teams. It was something that didn’t sit well I think with the fans. And I think not having people in place who knew the MMA business. I mean, being a smart businessperson is one thing, but knowing the MMA business is another thing also. I think they needed more people who knew the fight game a little more in control of that organization. People that start fight organizations will hopefully take lessons from that and hire people that are well respected and have experience in the MMA game to be the face of their organizations. I think they were all smart businesspeople, but they didn’t understand the MMA game and the demographics and maybe the way to market it.

And having a gigantic staff with large payrolls also does damage. With the IFL and Pro Elite, we’ve seen both with a lot of payroll. That causes problems. I mean you don’t need a million people to run an organization. Monte Cox used to run shows by himself, he did 300 shows on his own and was always profitable. I think he probably had two shows where he didn’t make money out of all of those. He’s a bright guy and knows how to run shows, so anybody that’s planning on starting anything really big might want to look towards people with experience like that.

[Tony]

Q: What are your thoughts on a fighters’ union?
A: I think it will happen, I think it has to happen. I think the sport is big enough now where it’s going to happen without a doubt. It’s just a matter of it being organized. A fighters’ union is obviously needed.

Q: Looking back, would you say there was a highlight or simply an emotional high in your career?
A: The first time fighting in a big show was an emotional high, winning the four-man tournament in the UFC was pretty big. I just remember signing my first autograph after I won my fight. I had sweat and tears falling down on the paper I was signing. So pretty neat. Pretty neat feeling.

Q: You won the first 15 fights of your career. Then you had the doctor’s stoppage against Matt Hume, and then you were undefeated for another nine fights until the Jutaro Nakao fight in SuperBrawl. What do you remember about that four-year run?
A: When I fought Matt Hume, I was a little overwhelmed. I think I was ranked fourth in the world at the time, fourth or fifth, and he was ranked number one. I was pretty overwhelmed by the cameras and stuff. You know, I had a dear-in-the-headlights type of thing. I was doing quite well. I took him down several times and things like that and then the doctors stopped the fight because they thought my nose was broken.

The fight against Jutaro Nakao, when I lost again later on in my career, that was a situation that was really weird. I had defended my title in the UFC at that time against Jorge Patino from Brazil, and then I fought a pro boxing match a week later and the week after that I was in Hawaii fighting Jutaro Nakao. And I had no idea who Jutaro Nakao was. I was supposed to be fighting a really easy fight in that one, and that guy backed out and they brought in Jutaro Nakao. I remember being in the locker room before that fight and I said to Frank Shamrock, “Are you familiar with this guy that I’m fighting?” I was warming up, getting ready to go out. And Frank Shamrock goes, “Yeah, I know a lot about him.” And I go, “How good is he?” And he goes, “Are you serious?” I go, “Yeah.” And he goes, “He’s really f------ good.”

And so that was a little surprising. I don’t think I had a bad fight against him. I took him down a couple of times, he hit me with a good liver kick, and then I took him down after that. I had already gotten out of one of his triangles and passed the guard and mounted him and stuff. And he got me in the triangle again and I thought, “Yeah, no big deal, I’ll get out of it.” And I went to start getting out of it, the next thing I know I woke up and he was standing on the ropes and the crowd was cheering. He’s got a pretty good triangle.

Q: After such a long run in the fight game, are your goals more personal than professional now?
A: When I had my neck injury that lasted for so long, my body was dictating to me what I could do. All my injuries that I’ve ever had in my career, through my mind I was able to defeat those injuries and, no matter what, get out and do well and win the world title and have a good career. I want to be the one mentally who can overpower my body. I’ve done that through rehab and just convincing myself that I can do it and made my neck strong again. I want to be the one that tells my body when it’s time to quit, not my body telling me.