UFC Hall of Famer Pat Miletich could be making his return to the combat sports realm in the near future.
During an appearance ”IT’S TIME!!! with Bruce Buffer,” longtime promoter and manager Monte Cox revealed that he is working on putting together a kickboxing bout between Miletich and professional boxer Michael Nunn. The matchup had been in the works for April, but the coronavirus pandemic put those talks on hold.
“[There’s] one big show I’m working on,” Cox said. “You’ve probably heard rumors of this, but Pat Miletich is going to fight again. He’s fighting Michael Nunn, a great boxer. It’s an incredible [fight]. This thing will draw. We could draw 7,000-plus in the Quad Cities. They are the two greatest professional athletes or fighters out of that area.”
A former UFC welterweight champion, Miletich went 8-2 in the Las Vegas-based promotion. The Miletich Martial Arts founder compiled a 29-7-2 record in MMA over the course of a career that began in 1995. He last competed in 2008, when he knocked out Thomas Denny at Adrenaline MMA 2 in Moline, Illinois. Miletich has since transitioned to a career as analyst, calling fights on AXS TV and UFC Fight Pass.
Nunn, meanwhile, was released from prison in February 2019 after serving more than 16 years of a drug trafficking sentence. Prior to his arrest in 2002, Nunn went 58-4 as a professional boxer, capturing the IBF middleweight title and the WBA super middleweight crown along the way.
“This is a spectacle,’’ Miletich said in a promotional video distributed to the Quad City Times in January. “It’s not a normal sporting event. It’s more of a spectacle.’’