When Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone announced plans to fight again, the reaction was mixed.
While there’s no question that Cerrone was one of the more popular and well-liked fighters during the prime of his career, it felt like those days were far behind him after going 0-6 with one no contest in his final seven fights. After retiring, Cerrone also openly confessed to taking steroids and at one point said “I feel like I’m f*cking 20 again” thanks to the substances he was finally allowed to take once he wasn’t beholden to the UFC’s anti-doping policy.
Jim Miller, who was Cerrone’s final opponent prior to announcing his comeback, would never admonish anybody for deciding to fight again but he admits he doesn’t love the circumstances surrounding this particular situation.
“I have a tough time telling other grown men what to do,” Miller told MMA Fighting. “I don’t really believe in it. But the fact that he was very, very open with his use of performance enhancers and the way the majority of his last fights went. He got knocked out quite a few times and that’s not healing from going on a little [testosterone replacement therapy] or whatever. I’m not super into it, to be 100 percent honest.”
During those final seven fights in his career, Cerrone suffered four knockouts and one submission loss before calling it a career. He’s now plotting a return to action with his 42nd birthday approaching in March and he’ll be three years removed from his last appearance in the UFC if he fights in 2025.
The time off is one factor. The damage absorbed from a long career in fighting is another. But the one part about Cerrone’s comeback plan that just doesn’t sit well with Miller is the use of banned substances after retirement.
While Cerrone has to undergo six months of testing before he would be allowed to fight, Miller just isn’t a fan of gaming the system to use banned substances for three years before getting cleared to compete again.
“It’s not my call,” Miller said. “It’s up to him and his team and if they want him to get punched in the head again, do your thing. I’m not a very big fan of the whole steroid vacation thing. What are we doing? But he’s going to do what he wants to do.”
Because Miller is steadfast in his belief that he can’t tell Cerrone or anybody else what to do with their lives, he prefers to just keep the focus on himself and his plans for the future.
Following a win UFC 309, Miller announced that he wanted to make it to 50 total fights in the UFC — a total of five more appearances — before he would finally hang up his gloves for good. While Miller has teased retirement in the past, he’s never truly declared those intentions until more recently but unlike Cerrone, he’s absolutely resolved in his decision.
“I want to be in a situation where when I’m done, I’m done,” Miller said. “There’s no ‘oh well I haven’t been training fight camp hard for six months, a year and now I feel better’ because I’m just working out and not just grinding myself down into dust to then kind of jump back into it.”
Miller knows from firsthand experience how hard it is to give up fighting, especially after witnessing the trials and tribulations his brother Dan Miller suffered through towards the tail end of his career.
There was a time when the Miller brothers were both considered future title contenders in the UFC but only Jim has been able to power forward while breaking records for the most fights and most wins in the history of the promotion.
Meanwhile, Dan last fought in 2015 with a career largely cut short due to injuries he sustained while training and fighting a decade straight.
“Close to home, my brother had neck surgery in 2013 and they went in, he had two joints that were messed up, they couldn’t tell him if they were going to fuse both joints or just one when they went in there,” Miller explained. “They ended up fusing only one. The doctor said if they fused the two, then he would not allow him to fight anymore. But he still had a banged up joint in his neck and he just didn’t take enough time off and ended up re-injuring it a few weeks out from a comeback fight. There he goes into it not nearly at 100 percent. It sucked to be a part of it. It sucked to watch my brother, who to this day I think could have been the champ at 185, the way that he fought and trained in the gym, leaps and bounds from what he performed at. He was always his worst enemy when he stepped into the octagon.
“To see him go in there still injured from the neck surgery and all this stuff, and not perform, and not be the moment that he wanted. To not be the comeback that he wanted. It’s tough and it sucks. I don’t want to do that to myself. I don’t want to do that to my wife and my team.”
So Miller won’t tell Cerrone what he should or shouldn’t do with his career but he promises on the day he retires from the sport that he’s really done with fighting.
He’s already set a timeline for calling it a career and Miller won’t deviate from that now that he’s made up his mind.
“When I make that choice that it’s done for me, it’s done,” Miller said. “I don’t ever want to be in that spot. I hope to do whatever and feel great after I’m done fighting. It would be great to get out of bed and walk normally to the bathroom and not limp! But I’m not going to just one day do that and be like now I need to go back to fighting.
“It’s a tough spot [for Cerrone]. I don’t like making decisions for other grown men.
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