On Monday’s MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, James Vick gave his opinion on Michael Chiesa, Evan Dunham and his recent hardships after losing over 20 percent of his purse at his only fight of the year…
“I knew that I wasn’t getting Chiesa, anyway, in the next fight because he just came off such a big win the no. 8-ranked guy. I just feel blessed that I got into the top 15. I win this fight and I’m taking his spot at number 14. Evan Dunham is a solid veteran he’s been around a long time. It’s going to be a good fight,” Vick says. “I definitely think I’m going to win. I think I’m going to win easily. I’m moving up fifteen spots in the rankings. I’m not disappointed at all. I’m thrilled to death.”
“Obviously I’m going to try to finish him,” he said. “I’m going to go for the finish, but if it doesn’t present itself, I think I’m going to win this thing handily via decision. I think that all I gotta do is basically the same thing I did my last fight and he’s not going to be able to take me down. He’s not going to be able to hold me down. My jiu-jitsu’s good enough where I’m not really worried about any of these guys taking me down and I can get up pretty much anytime I want. You saw my last fight. The guy took me down, but was holding me. I landed more strikes from the bottom than he did from the top. There’s no way this guy is going to outstrike me, so I see myself either winning an easy unanimous decision or catching him with something and getting the finish.”
“My goal at the start of the year was to get three fights and break into the top ten,” he says. “I think it’s about to happen. I’m going to win on June 4th and be no. 14 and hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll get another fight and get put in the top ten.
“I have a goal: in my mind, in the next two years I’ll be a world champion,” Vick declared. “Everything’s come together for me. It was a lot of hard times with the injuries and stuff, but the good thing is I wasn’t injured that whole time. I’ve had a lot of time in between fights, just a lot of bad timing with certain things where they kept me out of the ring longer, too. I’d have smaller injuries come up after a surgery or something. I’d pull my groin and have to wait another five or six weeks, but I progressed a lot in between the time period.”
Read PT. 2 HERE