For ABQ fighter Miller, the goal remains the same

Win and look good doing it: that’s how Albuquerque’s Ty Miller earned a UFC contract. 

On Aug. 12, on Dana White’s Contender Series at UFC Apex (recently renamed Meta Apex) in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the aforementioned UFC boss dangling the possibility of that contract, Miller put on what’s been described as a striking clinic in defeating New York’s Jimmy Drago by unanimous decision. 

He got that contract. 

And so …

Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Miller will step into the Octagon for the first time as a UFC contract fighter. He has, and has earned, that security. 

Yet, he said this week in a phone interview, the urgency of that formula — win and look good doing it — still applies, perhaps more so.

“I want to be an exciting fighter,” Miller said from Las Vegas, where he’s scheduled to face Eugene, Oregon’s Adam Fugitt in a welterweight (170-pound) fight on the early prelim portion of UFC 324. “That’s what I want to be for the UFC, and that’s what the UFC wants, at the end of the day.”

It might be a stretch to say Saturday’s moment has been a long time coming, since Miller is only 25 years old. Yet, it’s a moment he’s been planning for, dreaming of, for more than a decade. 

Miller was a wrestler at Sandia High School, but did so principally in an effort to round out his game for an eventual career in the cage.

 “I’ve always loved the sport,” he said of MMA in a 2023 interview with the Journal, recalling sessions hitting the mitts with his father in the family’s garage. 

Striking has always been his principal strength, as Drago discovered during their DWCS fight. Miller’s 6-0 record encompasses three wins by knockout or TKO, three by decision, none by submission. 

That doesn’t mean Miller is helpless on the ground or afraid to go there; his team at Albuquerque’s FIT-NHB gym — head coach Tom Vaughn, wrestling coach Jon Judy, striking coach Matt Priest — have seen to his development as a well-rounded fighter. All three will be in his corner on Saturday. 

The term well-rounded seems to apply as well to Fugitt (10-5), Miller’s opponent for his UFC debut. Five of Fugitt’s 10 victories have come via KO or TKO, three by submission, two by decision. 

The Oregon fighter has a clear edge in experience. Saturday’s will be his sixth UFC fight; he’s 2-3 in the previous five.

Miller, who’s listed at 6-foot-2, won’t have the height and reach advantage he had over Drago, who stands 5-10; Fugitt is listed at 6-1 and, adding another dimension, is left-handed. But Miller, a right-hander, believes he’s well prepared for whatever Fugitt brings.

“He’s a long, lengthy southpaw who likes to kick off his back leg a lot,” Miller said. “He likes to mix in takedowns. If he’s not knocked out (as he was in his most recent fight, by Islam Dulatov on July 19), he’s pretty tough and durable.

“I know he’s game, but I just feel like I’m quicker on the feet and I can stuff his shots. If he takes me down, I can get right back up. I believe I have the ability to check, move, counter off his kicks and knock him out.”

Any pressure he feels, Miller said, is outweighed by the excitement generated in beginning his UFC career at T-Mobile on the first UFC card presented by Paramount+ after the organization terminated its long relationship with ESPN. 

Miller’s is the first fight on the card, thus is the first fight of the UFC-Paramount+ partnership.

It is more, though, he said, about “exciting” than “excited.”

“I’m looking to show,” he said, “How exciting I am and how exciting the UFC is.”