— Cole Miller, a 22-year old fighter from Georgia, came onto The Ultimate Fighter 5 as an unknown, but quickly showed that he could become a force in the UFC's lightweight division.  Featuring a formidable ground game, Cole put up a great fight against one of the TUF 5 favorites, Joe Lauzon, in their fight that aired on SpikeTV last night.  Cole stopped by earlier today and spoke with us about his time on the show.

Below you will find both the written transcript and the full mp3 audio of the interview.

Can you tell us how you got started in MMA and how you ended up on The Ultimate Fighter 5?

Yeah, no problem.  I was living in Georgia, just a little under four years ago, and this guy I went to high school with came in to this sandwich shop I was working in. He had two black eyes and I was like "What the hell happened to you?"  He just he told me that he trains in MMA and I was like, "Yeah ,like UFC and Pride and stuff like that?" He was like "Yeah."  And, I was like, "That's cool, do you have somewhere you train and he was like, "Yeah, you should come out and train sometime," and so I did and I've been doing it ever since.  I was training in Georgia for like two and a half years, then I moved to Florida, training at America Top Team where I am now, and I teach in Boca Raton and all I do is fight.

How did I get on the show The Ultimate Fighter?  You know, I think I was already being looked at and then I went out to try out.  I went through that process really easy and went out to Vegas for the casting and they liked me so i was on the show.

Was was your confidence level at going into your fight with Joe Lauzon?

My confidence level was very high, because I did very well in the evaluations with Joe, so I was like, "I'm just going to fire one submission after another, cause he's going to put it to the ground. I know he's going to put it to the ground because that's what he always does.  He's just going to be doing me a favor.  If he puts me to the ground, I'm just going to keep firing one submission after the other and I'll catch him sooner or later.   

How bad off were you physically after the illegal hit from Joe?

Yeah, I was really bad off.  I was seeing spots, couldn't really see things.  I could hear fine but I couldn't talk very well, and it took me awhile to answer questions and, really, my whole depth perception was messed up and, you know, the whole seeing spots thing.  You know, I didn't want to take the easy road, I didn't want the easy way out, so I went in there and took my ass-beating.

You dominated your first fight, had a good showing in your fight against Lauzon...you have to be pretty happy with your performance on TUF, right?

Yeah, I think I did well.  I showed the public and the people in the UFC that I belong here.  Joe had already fought in the UFC and had done very well against my coach on the show Jens Pulver, everyone saw that, and he did well against Brian Geraghty and I was hanging right there with him and the fight was very competitive until the infraction, which was accidental, he didn't mean to do that.  I think I showed a lot of people that I have what it takes to be in the UFC and I'm going to be a force, for sure.

What do you have in store for the future?  Will you be fighting in the finale?

I don't know, I'm just gonna keep training like I'm training, you know, training twice a day every day.  I'll be in the UFC.

(Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl)
(Image COurtesy of UFC.com)

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Original article at http://www.buddytv.com/articles/ufc/exclusive_interview_cole_mille-6949.aspx