Jim Miller‘s goal of competing at UFC 300 is undeterred despite an alarming injury.
Miller, a lightweight veteran who has the most wins (24) and fights (41) in UFC history, announced Thursday on Instagram that he suffered a traumatic cataract in his right eye in his fight last weekend with Alexander Hernandez, courtesy of a first-round eye poke.
A traumatic cataract is a clouding of the eye lens after blunt or penetrating trauma to the eye, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Miller said he is experiencing blurriness in his vision when looking at things far away.
In a follow-up interview Friday with ESPN, Miller explained that doctors told him that his eye is unlikely to improve without surgery, but undergoing that type of operation would be risky for the future of his MMA career.
Miller said he still wants to fight two or three more times, culminating at UFC 300 in summer 2024. He’s the only fighter to have fought at UFC 100 and UFC 200, and his goal is to complete the trifecta.
Miller said he will hold off surgery until after he retires and he doesn’t believe the cataract will hamper him in training or future fights. Fighters must pass eye tests in order to be licensed by individual commissions.
“The fortunate thing is that my opponents have to be within arm’s reach, and I can see pretty well at that [distance],” Miller told ESPN. “Probably the best bet — and probably what I’m going to end up doing — is just kind of suck it up and have a little bit crappier vision until I’m done fighting.”
Doctors have told Miller, he said, that while things are unlikely to improve with the cataract, they could actually get worse. Miller said he’ll be wearing safety goggles while doing any work with cars or in his woodshop.
One of the most worst things about the injury, Miller said, is that he already has a bad left eye from a poke suffered in a 2018 fight against Dan Hooker. Miller said that eye poke caused scratches in his left cornea.
“It never quite came back to where it was,” Miller said of his left eye. “But yeah, so with the cataract now, it’s just kind of blurred things up. I guess the way [my right eye is], it’s not like you can really get a corrective lens or anything like that for it.”