Former UFC Welterweight Champion Pat Miletich and fellow UFC Hall Of Fame member Matt Hughes have had a long friendship, dating back to Hughes’ time in the Miletich Fighting System.
Hughes recently suffered life threatening injuries as his truck was struck by a train, but Miletich says his former pupil is both recovering and out of a coma.
“He is surprising the doctors,” Miletich said on The MMA Hour. “He’s making great leaps and he’s no longer in a coma, and he’s improving. It’s going to be a long road. Any type of head trauma at that level, there’s going to be some rehab.”
This is the first time somebody outside of Hughes’ immediate family has provided an update on the former UFC Welterweight Champion.
Miletich also provided some added insight into just how the whole accident may have happened in the first place, which investigators are still trying to piece together.
“The [train] engineer said, Matt had stopped on the gravel road,” Miletich said. “It’s a hill, goes up, it’s a real quick hill that goes up to the railroad tracks. He had stopped, then tried to get across it in time. The train was going almost 50 MPH. When you’re out in the country, there’s no crossing guards, there’s no lights. It’s almost like, he saw it, then tried to beat it. What I would say is that, you’re on a gravel road out in country on a hill and you’re trying to punch it and get over, you’re going to swing tires, he didn’t get across in time and got clipped on the passenger side.”
MMA fans are going to be hearing Miletich in the commentary booth next at Legacy Fighting Alliance 18 on August 4.
