Jim Miller would suggest he has a rather mundane life. He drives a nondescript black van to and from the gym and home, picking up the kids from school along the way to their eight-acre property in Stillwater, a rural Northwest New Jersey township of just over 4,000.
When not hunting deer and cooking the venison for his family of six, when not pouring hours of sweat into his training regimen, when not working on a revamp of his Civil War-era home, tending to their animals — three dogs, two cats, four ducks, four goats, a mini pig, a Vietnamese potbellied pig and plenty of chickens — or any of the projects that keep him busy most of the time, Miller goes to battle in a cage about three times a year for the UFC, the titan of mixed martial arts.
Miller is the iron man of the UFC — he owns records with 26 victories and 43 bouts with the promotion over the course of 15 years, plus an 11-1 mark as a pro before getting the 2008 call to hit the sport’s biggest stage. He’s never missed weight, never pulled out of a fight … except for that one time when COVID-19 protocols took the choice away from him, but he doesn’t count that — and he fought a month later.
It’s a label he embraces, even walking out to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” for a time.
