Pat Miletich’s Hall Of Fame Induction Speech

This past Sunday, UFC legend Pat Miletich was inducted into the UFC Hall Of Fame, below are excerpts from his induction speech, which you can watch here courtesy of MMAFighting.com.

The speech opened up with Dana White speaking about Pat Miletich’s time in the UFC , as well as an explanation for what went down when the UFC and Miletich had their falling out.

“When we bought the company back in 2001 he had the best camp in MMA. At the time when we bought the UFC he had pretty much every champion, he was a champion himself, then Matt Hughes became the champion, he came out of his camp. Tim Sylvia was the heavyweight champion, Jens Pulver was the first lightweight champion when he fought BJ Penn. The list goes on and on of talent that came out of the Pat Miletich camp.”

“There’s this rumor that there was a huge falling out between the UFC and Pat Miletich, not really true,” Dana White said. “Pat Miletich was pissed at me for a very long time. Going into season 3 of The Ultimate Fighter, I had called Pat and asked him if he would coach that season of The Ultimate Fighter with Carlos Newton, and he accepted.”

“Then things started to come together and Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz ended up coaching that season. I didn’t handle the thing the right way, I apologized to Pat. But Pat was pretty upset about it, and I don’t blame him. It was definitely mismanaged, handled the wrong way.”

“There was a time in this sport, a lot of people remember who have been around a lot of years, that this sport had one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel,” Miletich said. “we were in trouble. So you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta and Dana White saved the sport and none of us would be here had it not been for you guys. So we truly appreciate that.”

“I’ve had a blessed life, great family, great friends. I’m very thankful, very honored to be here, appreciate it.”