Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight James Vick was released from the promotion last October following four straight losses, which includes his knockout defeat to Niko Price at the UFC Fight Night 161 event in Tampa.
“The Texecutioner” was hoping to find a new lease on his combat sports life on the regional circuit, but suffered a devastating knockout loss to Andre Fialho at last weekend’s XMMA event in West Palm Beach, one that resulted in multiple injuries.
“Few days ago I took the worst loss of my career,” Vick wrote on Instagram. “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 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.”
Vick made his Octagon debut in impressive style, capturing a submission win over Ramsey Nijem at UFC Fight Night 26 way back in 2013 before jumping out to an impressive 9-1 record in his first 10 fights inside the Octagon.
“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. 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.”
Vick, who turns 34 later this month, retires with a 13-6 record with eight finishes.