Heavyweights Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller and Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne collide next Saturday, March 18, in Dubai. Miller hails from Long Island, New York, Browne from Perth, Australia, the promoter is Russian, and the host country is the United Arab Emirates. Heightening the multinational twang, an Irishman (Jono Carroll) and a Colombian (Miguel Marriaga) will rumble in the chief supporting bout.
The promoter, Moscow businessman Anatoly Sulyanov, is the founder of Hardcore FC, an MMA league that has produced 50 shows in Russia since its founding in mid-2020. He’s something of the Ryan Kavanaugh of Russia. Similar to Kavanaugh, the controversial Triller spokesman who has receded into the shadows, Sulyanov suffuses his promotions with musical acts that appeal to a young demographic and he has no shame in promoting fights between faded celebrities with little or no combat experience.
In some ways, his venture into traditional boxing with the Miller-Browne fight is his most shameless promotion yet. But having said that, it’s a fascinating match between two heavy-handed behemoths who are charismatic in their own way.
Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, undefeated in 26 fights, has won 21 straight since fighting a 4-round draw with Joey Dawejko in 2013. But he’s best known for being a poster boy for the PED scourge. No other fighter is in his class as a recidivist.
Miller, who made his mark as a kickboxer before transitioning into boxing, first tested positive in 2014 in California after a kickboxing event. Five years later, he was cleaved from his match with Anthony Joshua for PED infractions, blowing a purported $5 million payday and the opportunity to win the world heavyweight title. The assignment then went to Andy Ruiz who sprung one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight title annals.
Miller squealed bloody murder after being told that he had tested positive for a muscle growth hormone. The test, he insisted, was obviously flawed. He changed his tune after two other banned substances turned up in his “B” sample. “I hurt my family, my friends, my team, my supporters. But I’m gonna own up to it, I’m a correct it and I’m gonn come back better,” he said sheepishly.
But then, 13 months later, he flunked yet another drug test, scuppering his scheduled match with Jerry Forrest at the MGM Bubble. Now a pariah in the eyes of the sport’s two most powerful promoters – Eddie Hearn and Bob Arum – he was, in effect, exiled to Siberia. 43 months would elapse before he returned to the ring.
Miller launched his comeback on June 23 of last year in Buenos Aires where he opposed a local man of little repute, Ariel Esteban Bracamonte. Ironically, the fight was designed as lagniappe for a WBA convention themed around the topic of “KOing drugs.”
Miller, who has a very thick torso, carried 341 ¾ pounds on his six-foot-four frame but looked in better shape than his flabby Argentine opponent who weighed 305 ½. The fight went the full “10” with Big Baby winning a comfortable decision in a lackluster fight.
One month later, in his most recent fight, Miller opposed Tijuana’s Derek Cardenas at an Embassy Suites hotel in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Cardenas, who was 8-9 heading in and had been stopped seven times, folded his tent in the fourth round.
Big Daddy Browne
Seven years have elapsed since Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne won a version of the WBA heavyweight title, stopping Ruslan Chagaev in the 10th round in hostile Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
Big Daddy won in dramatic fashion, pulling the fight out of the fire after nearly getting knocked out in the sixth stanza. Through the completed rounds, he trailed by margins of 6, 6, and 7 points.
Some called it the proudest moment in Australian boxing history, but that talk quieted after Browne’s post-fight urine test turned up evidence of clenbuterol. The banned substance was found in both his “A” and “B” samples.
Browne blustered that he was innocent and threatened to sue everyone he could think of, but subsequently consented to join the WBC Clean Boxing Program where he was subject to random drug tests. During his enrollment, he tested positive for the banned substance Ostarine.
In common with Big Baby Miller, Lucas Browne (31-3, 27 KOs) has a kickboxing background. He first laced on a pair of boxing gloves at age 29 and is currently 43 years old. There were calls for him to retire after he was viciously KOed by Dillian Whyte in 2018 – he was administered oxygen before he was permitted to leave the ring – and again the following year when he was stopped by limited David Allen who caved him in with a body punch.
The cry grew louder when Browne suffered his most embarrassing defeat. In April of 2021, Browne was knocked out in the opening round by Paul Gallen, a 39-year-old former rugby star with little boxing experience. But then Big Daddy went and turned back the clock in a shocker, blowing away New Zealand’s heavily favored Junior Fa in the opening stanza. Fa, who was 19-1 heading in after a strong amateur career, was on the deck twice before the match was terminated after only 118 seconds.
And that brings us to Saturday, March 18, when these two “bigs” will do battle in Dubai (assuming the match doesn’t fall apart, which would be no great surprise). By all accounts, Big Baby Miller, the younger man by nine years, should win every minute of every round for as long as it lasts, but yet it’s hard to bet against the Aussie who has shown a knack for unholstering his haymaker and turning the tide with one big punch.
It's a morbidly compelling attraction.