It’s 2020, and Pat Miletich will be back fighting.
How did his comeback manifest? In a recent episode of his podcast, “The Final Round with Miletich and Kruck,” Miletich explained how two retired combat sports champions decided to put on the gloves one more time after all these years.
“I went to my attorney’s office, who happens to be my opponent’s attorney also,” Miletich said. “… My attorney brought up the idea. He said, ‘You and Nunn should get together and do a fight for the Quad City fans.”
In April, Miletich’s longtime manager, Monte Cox, broke the news. Miletich, a UFC Hall of Famer, will be taking his first fight since December 2008 when he takes on former IBF and WBA boxing champion Michael Nunn. The fighters will square off in a kickboxing match in Iowa when the coronavirus pandemic calms down.
In Miletich’s case, there are a handful of motivating factors, but he doesn’t miss fighting. Against an ideal opponent, Miletich hopes to promote his recently started broadcast service while helping support local fighters who will join him on the undercard.
“It’s not that I miss fighting; I don’t. But Michael Nunn has such a big name,” Miletich said. “That’s the only reason I would do something like this – because it’s a challenge, because Michael Nunn has a huge name. We’re similar in age.
“… Also because I had already launched a dot com pay-per-view service. We experimented. It took us 17 days to put that company together and do our first MMA show after AXS TV pulled the rug out from underneath all of us with LFA. … This is a way to really get the word out about this company, to do a big broadcast and get these young fighters in this area a chance to get some recognition and be on a pretty big card. There’s going to be a huge crowd at this thing.”
When speaking on his 57-year-old opponent, Miletich, 51, demonstrated a high level of knowledge and respect for Nunn’s boxing credentials.
“For four years he was the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world when ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard and Hagler were kind of on their sunset. They didn’t want to have anything to do with Nunn,” Miletich said. “They knew they’d get destroyed by him. That’s truly how good he was. He was not getting touched in fights.
“People will look up his record and go, ‘Well, he got knocked out by James Toney.’ Just to point out, Nunn didn’t even train for that fight, and he destroyed (him). He made Toney look like a fool for 10 rounds of that fight and then gassed because he didn’t train. Then, (he) got clipped and knocked out. That’s how good he was. That’s the thing people have to understand: how good he is.”
Kickboxing rules were a good middle ground for a mixed martial artist vs. boxer matchup, Miletich explained. Both Miletich and Nunn will be partially in and partially out of their usual elements.
“It’s a challenge for me, because I can’t take him down and submit him or beat him up,” Miletich said. “That’s against the rules. It’s the same challenge for him, because I’m going to be allowed to kick.”
UFC Hall of Famer Pat Miletich on comeback fight vs. Michael Nunn: 'It's not that I miss fighting'