“People don’t understand how bad of an injury I was dealing with,” McMillen said ahead of his fight with Alberto Montes in Oklahoma City. “It was a two-year injury — a pinched sciatic nerve in my back, so any time I would do any kind of running, jumping, training, my foot would go numb… For the Mgoyan fight, I walked out and my foot was numb; it was hard to warm up. I didn’t get to grapple at all for that camp and I shut down a high-level grappler — people don’t put enough respect on that kid’s name; he’d beat a lot of guys in the UFC — and I was able to shut down his wrestling without wrestling or grappling in camp, or for a prior year before that.
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“I was beating up dudes on the regional scene, taking fights at 160, 170 (pounds) — whatever I could find and get offered to get that checkmark in my win column and get to the UFC,” continued McMillen. “I was barely training for a lot of those fights. I had to do modified fight camps because I couldn’t do much at all. Even hitting mitts — moving around, hitting mitts — every time I would do a five-minute round with somebody, my foot would go numb and we’d have to wake it back up, get the blood flowing… It was a headache. It was super-frustrating because I never thought it would get better, but I kept working with some very good doctors and we finally got to the bottom of it, figuring out some movements and stuff that works for me. I still went into my debut with it — it didn’t go away until five weeks, six weeks out from that fight — and it’s been gone since.”
After a knock-down, drag-out battle with Mgoyan to secure his spot in the UFC featherweight ranks, McMillen debuted in April opposite returning Italian Manolo Zecchini and the two got after it from the outset.
For nearly three-and-a-half minutes, it was Rock’em Sock’em Robots, with McMillen frequently connecting with the cleaner, more impactful blows. As the fight wore on, the unbeaten Contender Series grad started to really take control and hurt Zecchini, finally stopping him amidst a hail of offense along the fence that left him bleeding, battered, and broken.
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