Former UFC lightweight, James Vick, has officially retired.
Over the weekend, Vick was brutally finished in the second round via TKO by Andre Fialho in the main event for XMMA: Vick vs. Fialho, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Coming on the heels of his fifth consecutive loss, and third consecutive TKO loss, Vick detailed in an emotional Instagram post Wednesday that he suffered severe injuries in his bout against Fialho, and that he will be retiring as a result of not wanting to put his family through the pain of seeing him get hurt anymore.
“I don’t know where to start this,” James wrote. “(A) few days ago I took my 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 used 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 game or football game. This is combat sports and this shit can b permanent. One of the last punches he landed I knew something was seriously wrong. I’m glad the referee 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 bi lateral break plus my jaw 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 years-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 that I will always be so grateful for. It bothers me that my three 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.”
James Vick said via Instagram.
Source: Instagram
