James Vick entered TUF 15 with a 4-0 record, after fighting for less than a year. On the TUF LIve season, Vick beat Dakota Cochrane, Daron Cruickshank, and Joe Proctor, before losing to Michael Chiesa. Vick won five in a row in the UFC, before losing via KO to Beneil Dariush at UFC 199 in 2016. But the Texas native bounced back to win four more in a row.
However, the better you do in the UFC, the harder the competition gets, and Vick, ranked as high as #9, found his level, losing to the elite three times in a row – Justin Gaethje, Paul Felder, and Dan Hooker. Then there was a step down to, Nico Price, and Vick lost again, and was released. He had one more fight, losing to Andre Fialho via a brutal TKO at XMMA: Vick vs Fialho on January 30, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
And now the fighter has announced his retirement on his social network.
“IDK where to start this,” he began. “Few days ago I took the worst loss of my career. I went out on my shield like I always have like a warrior. I am very sorry to everyone who helped and believe in me so much this last year. The truth is I haven’t felt that passion/love for fighting the way I use to in a long time. But I have always been disciplined and trained hard no matter what.
“One of my main reasons for still fighting was to prove to my son that you can’t just give up when things get hard in life. But this is not the way to teach him that. This is not like failing a test or losing a basketball or football game. This is combat sports and this s*** can be permanent. One of the last punches he landed, I knew something was seriously wrong. I’m glad the ref stepped in because lord knows I would have been too tough and dumb to do that.
“My orbital is broke on my right side, the fracture went all the way through to the other side causing a bilateral break, plus my jaw is completely displaced so tomorrow they are finally doing surgery to fix it. It really was a perfectly placed shot.
“The Doctor said I could definitely fight again after this if I wanted to but this was my last fight. I can’t keep putting my family through this. I have reached the top of where I was going to get in combat sports in becoming a top 10 fighter in the UFC. Honestly, that was probably a major overachievement considering I didn’t even start training until I was 20 yrs old, worked a full-time job for almost half of that, and had several major surgeries after that. Trying to catch these guys that have trained their entire lives has seriously been the hardest thing I have ever done. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
“Thank you to anyone who has been there to support me, teach me, or cheer me on along the way. I have made life long relationships in this martial arts journey I will always be so grateful for. It bothers me that my 3-year-old son has to see his daddy with his jaw wired shut for four to six weeks because of all this. He is so little and doesn’t understand. Time to move on and focus more on my family and raising my son to be a great man.Thank you everyone and thank this sport for the memories.”
The UnderGround wishes Vick every success in his future endeavors.
