Stories from the Road: Pat Miletich

Pat Miletich lived, ate and breathed fighting. | Photo: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com

Pat Miletich can travel back to a time when he was driving in those cramped, cranky U-Haul trucks, a folded cage in the back, rumbling along some dim backroad managing to hit every conceivable bump and pothole on the way to Who Knows Where, USA. The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first welterweight titleholder remembers when people actually scratched their heads and wondered what mixed martials arts was.

Miletich was a prophet then -- it was only 20 years ago -- as he helped advance a sport and, to a point, a way of life that has not only grown exponentially in the United States but internationally. It is why,…