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Vinc Pichel had his fair share of scraps in his younger days, and that led him to a career in MMA.
At UFC 252 this weekend, Vinc Pichel will step into the Octagon for the first time in a while against one of the most experienced guys in the promotion, Jim Miller. The bout will serve as the featured bout of the preliminary card, and he’ll be looking to pick up his six win in seven fights if he can get through Miller.
The 37-year-old had a long and winding road to an MMA career, which included a lot of violence and bad choices. In an interview with BJPenn.com, Pichel detailed some of the craziest street fights he has been involved in, and how it led to the career he now enjoys.
“I’ve been fighting my entire life. I grew up fighting in the streets with no refs. I’ve been stabbed, had people shoot at me. Pool cues, tables, chairs, you name it I’ve been hit by. I have been in a lot of fights, maybe that is why I am so good at fighting. I am used to the chaos.”
He was then asked what he considered to be the craziest story:
“I’ve been in rumbles, I’ve been in some crazy sh-t. I was never the kind of guy who would one-on-one somebody, instead, I’d go after three or four people. I’ll tell you this story. I believe it was the fourth of July party and when I was younger I was a skater punk and we used to fight the jocks because they were our enemies,” Pichel explained. “We were at this party and it was actually next to a church. Some sh-t goes down between my friend and another guy and the fight actually took place at the church.
“All of a sudden, I mean there are probably 50-60 people at this party. We all go to the church and it’s a brawl and I’m like f—k this, I used to have this hockey stick and my buddy has a video of me going through the crowd. All you see is people fall like dominoes because I was hacking people’s legs,” he continued. “That is the kind of guy I was. I was a violent little asshole who didn’t give a f—k. If I was able to cause pain to someone I was in my happy place.”
Another street fight where he ended up knocking out a Taekwondo black belt led him to enter an MMA gym for the first time, where he got his butt kicked but persevered. After going 7-0 to start his career he was a member of the TUF 15 cast, making it to the semi-finals before falling to Al Iaquinta. He dropped his first official UFC fight to Rustam Khabilov, but has gone 5-1 since.
UFC 252 goes down August 15th in Vegas, with Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic facing off for the heavyweight title in the main event.