James Vick announces his retirement after displacing his jaw in “the worst loss” of his career

James Vick has announced his retirement from MMA.

After Vick lost four straight fights in the UFC and was released many wondered if he would fight again. Yet, after a year away from the sports, Vick returned to headline an XMMA event last Saturday night. Unfortunately for Vick, he suffered a second-round TKO loss to PFL veteran, Andre Fialho.

Following the loss, James Vick took to Instagram to release a statement on the fight and announce his retirement from the sport.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKzs9EnBOEQ/

“Idk where to start this. 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,” James Vick wrote. “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,” James Vick continued. “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.”

James Vick added that despite the doctors saying he can fight again, he doesn’t want to put his body through that anymore. He also believes he overachieved in MMA and is happy with his career.

“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,” James Vick said. “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,” James Vick concluded. “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.”

James Vick ends his MMA career with a record of 13-6 and holds notable wins over Franciso Trinaldo, Joe Duffy, Jake Matthews, and Ramsey Nijem. He also headlined a UFC show and went 9-5 inside the Octagon.

What do you make of James Vick retiring from MMA?