Following UFC 124, Jim Miller Emerges in Title Picture

Matthew Wheeler (Staff Writer) | December 13, 2010 | 1 Reply

With an impressive victory over one of the hottest lightweight prospects in the UFC, Jim Miller is finally being talked about in the title contention. Even while racking up wins in the UFC, Miller was never been given the respect within the division he thought he reserved.

The UFC lightweight belt will be contested at UFC 125 and the first shot at the title after that will go to the winner of this week’s WEC main event between WEC lightweight champ Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis. After the impressive performance and shared submission of the night victory, Miller might have solidified himself as next in line. The UFC could also go in another direction with Miller and put him against someone with high relevance in the lightweight class such as Kenny Florian.

Miller improved to 19-2 with his sixth straight win within the UFC, and is a very complete martial artist. His only two loses in MMA have been to Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar who will soon fight each other for the championship belt.

Miller is a NCAA division 1 wrestler with a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu under Jamie Cruz at Renzo Gracie. Though he boasts 11 submission victories in MMA his Jiu-Jitsu skills have flown under the radar until his UFC 124 submission of the night victory over Charles Oliveira. It was Oliveira who came out strong working for the submission after a nice takedown but was caught in a rookie mistake of going for punches over an escape and nearly had his limb removed.

While he is not talked about very often, Miller has rightfully earned his spot as a top 5 UFC lightweight and what direction the UFC chooses to go with him will be interesting to see.

Tags: Charles Oliveira, Jim Miller, Lightweight, MMA, UFC, UFC 124

Category: MMA, Opinion, UFC

About the Author (Author Profile)

A college student residing in Arizona, coming off of active duty and continuing to work for the government. I hold a black belt in Hapkido, and have high school wrestling experience paired with multiple grappling tournaments. I spent six months training Authentic Muay Thai and now I am currently enrolling in Gracie B.J.J/MMA this week. I plan on starting my amateur fighting Career sometime late this year to early next year and also plan on entering B.J.J. tournaments through the year.