Filed under: K1
Fighting for the first time since having open-heart surgery five years ago, Mark Miller returned to the ring and won in stunning fashion on Saturday in Moscow, knocking out his opponent, Russia’s Nikolaj Falin, in just three seconds.
The Miller-Falin kickboxing match, part of the Glory World Series event, wasn’t much of a fight at all. But for Miller, the victory represents a stunning comeback from a time when he wasn’t sure if he would survive, let alone continue to fight professionally.
“There’s always moments of doubt in anyone’s life – but I’m also bull-headed and completely stubborn,” Miller said on The MMA Hour last week. “I don’t care if I die in the ring at this point. I have to get back to it.”
Miller, who learned of his heart condition when he took a physical exam to get cleared for a fight in Florida in 2006, is believed to be the first fighter anywhere, ever, to win a fight after having open-heart surgery.
“The first prognosis was my cardiac output was like 20 percent. Regular people, it’s usually around 65 percent,” Miller said. “It was so low that I could’ve been walking down the street, training, whatever – and I could just fall over and die. … It was to the point where any stress on the heart probably could’ve caused a real problem at that point.”
But now Miller is not just healthy, he’s winning fights again.
Other results on the Glory World Series card included Strikeforce heavyweight Sergei Kharitonov knocking out Mighty Mo in a kickboxing match, and former UFC fighter Denis Stojnic submitting Mladen Kujundzic with a rear-naked choke in an MMA fight.