Jim Miller will return to action against Chase Hooper at UFC 314 this Saturday in Miami. While the two lightweights will meet in one of the first bouts of the night, the stands inside the host Kaseya Center should be full of fans by they time they enter the cage.
Hearing the fans cheering will be music to Miller’s ears.
In fact, the 41-year-old MMA legend specifically requested that the last few fights of his illustrious career occur in arenas, rather than in the quiet of the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, which can only accommodate a small crowd.
“Fighting in a room this big, it’s not how the sport’s supposed to go down.”#UFC314‘s Jim Miller, the man with the most fights in octagon history, thinks the UFC Apex is failing to maximize the sport. pic.twitter.com/lWTSiFfPKs
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) April 9, 2025
Only “big crowds” for Jim Miller
“The Apex is great,” Miller told the media before UFC 314, crediting the Las Vegas venue for allowing fighters to compete during the lockdowns of the pandemic. “It served a purpose. We got to fight, we got to make money and support our families during Covid and the lockdowns… I still got to fight.
“Fighting in a room this big, it’s not how the sport’s supposed to go down,” Miller added. “When I’m fighting, when the clock is ticking, I don’t really hear much [even in an arena]… In between rounds, I hear [the crowd]. I can still hear the crowd in between rounds in that first fight with [Joe] Lauzon. It was deafening.
“When I emailed [UFC matchmaker] Sean [Shelby] before this fight, to ask for it, [I said] I’ve got a couple left — five maximum — and I’d like them all to be in front of big crowds.
“Here we are.”
Jim Miller holds numerous records in the UFC, most notably the record for most fights and most wins, at 45 and 27 respectively. He has stated he would like to retire after 50 UFC fights, and hopefully score three more wins in that span, so he can retire with 30 UFC victories.
Regardless, his records are likely to stand the rest of time. Andrei Arlovski is in second place for both UFC fights and victories, at 42 and 23 respectively, and he is no longer signed with the promotion.
