Pat Miletich

Patrick Jay Miletich (born March 9, 1968) is a retired American mixed martial artist and former sports commentator.

He is known for his fights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where he became the first UFC Welterweight Champion and UFC 16 Welterweight Tournament Winner.

Miletich is also known as a highly successful trainer and coach, having founded Miletich Fighting Systems.

This camp is considered one of the most successful in MMA history and has produced several world champions.

After training in jiu-jitsu for a year, the same friend then got him into the Battle of the Masters, an MMA tournament held in Chicago in 1995.

Miletich continued fighting at smaller events and enjoyed success.

He was undefeated through 15 fights before losing to Matt Hume.

Three fights later Miletich fought in UFC 16 and won the first UFC Welterweight tournament.

At UFC 17.5: Ultimate Brazil, Miletich defeated Mikey Burnett to become the first UFC Welterweight Champion.

In his fifth title defense at UFC 31 he suffered his first UFC loss as he lost the championship to Carlos Newton by submission.

According to Miletich, he had a rematch clause in his contract but it was bypassed by the organization as Miletich's camp already had multiple high-ranked fighters in the welterweight division.

His next fight was a KO win over Shonie Carter at UFC 32.

After the fight with Carter, Miletich moved up to the Middleweight division.

This was also partly due to encouragement by UFC management and because his teammate, Matt Hughes, defeated Carlos Newton to win the UFC Welterweight Championship.

Miletich returned to fight at his new weight at UFC 36, but quickly lost to Matt Lindland.

Miletich decided to take some time away from professional fighting and recover from numerous chronic injuries.

Miletich was scheduled to fight Frank Trigg at WFA 3 but pulled out due to injury.

He returned in September 2006 to fight Renzo Gracie in an IFL superfight, and submitted to a guillotine choke in the first round.

Miletich spoke briefly after the fight about re-aggravating his old neck injury before the Gracie fight.

Miletich's last fight was in December 2008 where he scored a second-round KO over Thomas Denny that was televised on the HDNet network.

On July 6, 2014, he was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.

Miletich, the youngest of five children, was born in Davenport, Iowa, to second generation Croatian immigrant parents.

Two of his brothers are deceased.

Miletich started wrestling at the age of five, continuing at Bettendorf High School.

Miletich also played high school football in Bettendorf Bulldogs and was an All-State nose guard in his senior year.

Miletich shared the Bettendorf High School wrestling room with future MMA champion Mark Kerr.

He said he wanted to be a world champion in something and wrestling was something he was good at.

Although Miletich originally planned to pursue football after graduating high school, he eventually chose to wrestle in junior college.

When his mother developed heart problems, he left school to care for her.

Miletich has stated in past interviews that he actually began fighting to help pay her bills.

Miletich started his MMA training at 26.

Before this, Miletich trained at Tarpein's Dojo in, Davenport, IA with Grand Master Nick Tarpein, where he learned much of what he knows about karate, and was introduced to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for the very first time.

With Miletich's wrestling background, Jiu-Jitsu came naturally to him.

When Miletich coupled BJJ with his strong foundation in boxing/karate, he realized where his fighting career should go; MMA.

After learning the foundations of BJJ in Tarpein's Dojo, Miletich decided to branch out and learn BJJ full-time.

A friend from Chicago got him into a Renzo Gracie seminar.

Over a decade since his last mixed martial arts bout, Miletich was originally scheduled to face Michael Nunn in a kickboxing match on April 18, 2020.

However, the bout was rescheduled to July 18, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Miletich lost to Nunn via split decision.

After a near fifteen year hiatus, Miletich returned to face rival Mike Jackson on October 14, 2023 at Caged Aggression 36.