James Vick Retires From MMA Following Five-Fight Losing Streak
The fight game is filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Former UFC fighter, James Vick has been on the receiving end of those career lows as of late, having lost 5 of his last fights, 4 of them unfortunately coming by brutal KO’s.
Facing off against future interim champ, Justin Gaethje in his first UFC main event in August 2018, the future looked bright for “The Texecutioner.” Going into the fight, Vick was 14-1 as a professional and talked a big game towards his opponent. Vick promised he would extend Gaethje’s losing streak and send him running to the B-leagues after their fight. What came after? A haymaker from ‘The Highlight’ which knocked out the towering Texan.
This only marked the second loss of his Vick’s career. However, it wouldn’t be his last.
After Gaethje landed his signature backflip, Vick would be matched up against the shark tank that is the UFC lightweight division. Paul Felder was the first to be matched up with Vick following his only loss in his last 5 fights. Although being close to a near finish of Felder in the last seconds of the fight, “The Irish Dragon” would edge out Vick by unanimous decision. The stint didn’t end there.
Next up on the murderer’s row was New Zealand’s Dan Hooker. “The Hangman” didn’t need much time to tie up the metaphorical noose, dispatching the 12-fight UFC veteran in under 3 minutes. Vick had endured 3 devastating losses in under 365 days.
The trio of defeats would leave Vick to pursue a new weight class, 170, in hopes that a rebirth of his career could take place. James Vick is incredibly tall for a lightweight at 6’3, so perhaps he thought the weight cut was affecting his performances and overall chin. However, welterweight would end being a dead end for the Fort Worth fighter.
Standing over the fan-favorite Niko Price, Vick would once again be knocked out, this time with a shocking up-kick from the downed Price. This was the last stop for Vick in his UFC career. He would later be released by the UFC following the streak of unlucky events.
Two years later, a promotion by the name of XMMA would make their debut in hosting MMA events. “The Texecutioner” would be brought in to headline the stacked card full of former UFC veterans among Marcelo Golm, Kyle Bochniak and others.
Come fight night, shades of the old, successful James Vick came to life in the first round against Andre Fialho. Vick had likely won his first round in 3 years, outpointing the PFL vet. His early success would come to a close with Fialho unloading a insane combination of strikes on Vick. One knockdown followed up in the second round with Vick quickly rising to have his opponent releasing another burst of punches.
After a minute of not effectively defending himself on the feet, the referee would step in to crown Fialho the winner of the bout. Vick had enough. After a 5-fight losing streak, he would hang up the gloves, publicly announcing his retirement on his Instagram feed.
“Idk where to start this.” Vick stated. “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 shit 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 to 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 Bi lateral 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 over achievement 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 4 to 6 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.”
Do you think James Vick has made the right move by retiring?
