Miller on CroCop: “This time it’s personal”

New York heavyweight Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller (22-1-0, 10 KO's) has been focused on professional boxing in the last two years, chasing his dream of winning a major world title.

Miller, who boxes out of the famous Gleason’s Gym in New York, made the decision to focus on boxing full-time following a loss to Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic (22-8, 12 KO’s) in 2012.

That loss came in the quarter-finals of a K-1 Grand Prix staged in Zagreb, Croatia. Miller says the decision was “a robbery” and, while he is progressing well in the boxing game, he has always wanted to settle score.

A month ago, Sergey Kharitonov dropped out of the GLORY 17 LOS ANGELES headline fight against ‘CroCop’ because of a hand injury. News reached Miller that a rematch opportunity was available and he jumped at it.

“This fight came up and I wanted it man. I’m taking it on a month’s notice, I’m going to settle the score with ‘CroCop’ and then I am going back to boxing, mission accomplished,” says Miller.

“On a scale of 0 to 10 that robbery was a 10, really. He was doing nothing. Well, apart from head-butting me. If you watch the fight through, you can see it. Look at the start of the third round.

“He threw that head-butt so blatantly, like it was just a right hand or something. The referee saw it clear as day but didn’t do a thing. Okay.

“Man I wasn’t just fighting CroCop in there. His manager, Orsat, was the promoter of the show and the guy who arranged some K-1 branding deal for it. When the referee didn’t penalize CroCop I knew what was going on, I knew I was being f--ked.

“Then at the end they are about to announce the decision and I’m like man, I know I am about to get robbed here. And I was. But you know what, that’s the fight game when you go out of town for your fights.

“Afterwards people from the production team were coming up to me and were like ‘Hey, sorry, we’re in Croatia so…’ It’s not going to be like that in Los Angeles though. It’s just me and him. So it’s going to be a fair chance.

“I might technically be the home fighter, being an American, but we’re out on the West Coast so I don’t think it will be like that really. So I am just going to whup his ass again and this time we will get the right result.”

Indeed, Miller has repeatedly stated his intention to ‘whup CroCop’s ass’. He posted a video of himself doing just that on his Instagram account when the fight was officially announced.

‘CroCop’ got wind of it. In a recent interview on the GLORY website he said that Miller “maybe talks too much” but that he wasn’t taking it personally, assuming that Miller was just playing his part of the fight game.

Miller doesn’t see it exactly like that.

“The fight game, you put yourself into a mental state. So after that first fight yeah I still went to the dressing room and I showed respect and all that. But now we signed another contract to fight again and now I am in a different mental state, the state to whup his ass,” he says.

“And if we’re talking fights being ‘strictly business’ then yeah the first one was that, we didn’t really know each other or have a history, but after I got robbed by the judge’s decision, then it became more personal.

“And he still doesn’t agree that the decision was controversial; I’m like, ‘whatever man.’ It won’t be judges this time. So yeah, this time it is personal.”

Miller has signed a one-off deal for this fight and will then return to boxing to chase his title dream. He started out as a kickboxer before moving into boxing full-time, he says due to lack of opportunity.

“Fight-wise there was nothing there for me. I was hungry for it but there weren’t the opportunities. But  I like how GLORY do things and I would never say never,” he says.

“Right now my focus is on winning a major title in boxing in the next two years. I am in the Top 50 in the world right now after nine fights and by the end of the year I think I will be in the Top 20.

“In the next two years I am going to get that title shot. And when I become heavyweight boxing champion of the world that will only reflect well on GLORY.”

GLORY 17 LOS ANGELES takes place Saturday June 21 in Los Angeles, California and airs live on SPIKE TV to more than 98 million homes across the USA.

Also on the SPIKE TV card is a lightweight contender fight between Ky Hollenbeck and Andy ‘The Machine’ Ristie, with California man Hollenbeck heading into a title shot if he can get the victory in LA.

The card’s centerpiece is a four-man Featherweight Contender Tournament, the winner of which will go forward to a title shot. Top prospects Yodkhunpon (Thailand), Shane Oblonsky (California, USA), Gabriel Varga (Canada) and Marcus Vinicius (Brazil) take part.

After GLORY 17 LOS ANGELES we head into the GLORY: LAST MAN STANDING pay-per-view. Priced at $34.95 the card features three world titles (Heavyweight, Middleweight Welterweight) and an eight-man tournament.