The gap in Octagon experience for this short-notice Ultimate Fighting Championship match will be
historic.

Earlier in May, Jim Miller
(35-17, 1 NC) was slated to face Ludovit
Klein at
UFC on ESPN 46. A few weeks before the match, Jared
Gordon stepped in to replace Klein against Miller. On Thursday,
news broke from Fight
Bananas that Gordon was forced out of the fight that will be
happening on Saturday. The promotion cobbled together another
replacement option, per Eurosport
NL, and Miller will now be squaring off with newcomer Jesse
Butler (12-4) on June 3 at the UFC Apex. The lightweight
pairing has been confirmed by Butler on Twitter shortly after its
announcement.

Miller is still aiming to rebound from his first loss in a few
years, where he came up short to Alexander
Hernandez in February on the scorecards. That loss ended a
three-fight win streak for the 39-year-old veteran, who had strung
together a trio of finishes over Erick
Gonzalez, Nikolas
Motta and Donald
Cerrone in less than nine months. The fighter with more bouts
in the UFC than any other is still expected to continue competing
until 2024, when UFC 300 hits around May or June of that year.
“A-10” currently leads the UFC in fights (41) and wins (24), and
the latter tally could be tied by Andrei
Arlovski should Miller lose while Arlovski prevails that
night.

Typically a featherweight, Louisiana’s Butler will enter the UFC on
a five-fight win streak. His last three appearance came under the
Fury Fighting Championship banner, where he
beat the likes of Dimitre Ivy,
Masio
Fullen and Anselmo
Luis
Luna Jr. in 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively. The Kron Gracie
West Monroe product celebrates a finish rate of 75%, with
two-thirds of his pro victories coming via tapout. With Miller’s 41
UFC appearances to Butler’s zero, this will provide for the
greatest discrepancy in organizational experience – breaking
Miller’s record when he met Nikolas
Motta three bouts ago.

UFC on ESPN 46 will go down at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on June 3,
with a flyweights Kai Kara France and Amir Albazi
handling their business in the marquee matchup. The co-headliner
will see 145-pound stalwart Alex
Caceres duke it out with finisher Daniel
Pineda. Additional main card tilts other than Miller-Butler
include a flyweight scrap as Tim Elliott
fights Victor
Altamirano, a women’s flyweight collision when Karine
Silva faces Ketlen
Souza and a 170-pound stylistic clash as Abubakar
Nurmagomedov takes on Elizeu
Zaleski dos Santos.





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Jim Miller Now Faces Promotional Newcomer Jesse Butler at UFC on ESPN 46