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James Vick Believes Justin Gaethje’s Losses are the Blueprint on How to Beat Him



Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight prospect James Vick gets a chance to crack the Top 10 of the talent-rich 155-pound division with a win over No. 7-ranked lightweight Justin Gaethje in an intriguing contest on Aug. 25 in the main event of UFC Fight Night 135.

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Vick (9-1) has gone about his business fairly quietly, but fans are starting to take notice of “The Texecutioner.” The 31 year-old is riding a four-fight win streak over solid competition including impressive performances recently against Joseph Duffy and Francisco Trinaldo.

Vick’s next fight was scheduled to be against No. 14-ranked Paul Felder on July 14 at UFC Boise, but put his hand up on short notice as a replacement for Gaethje’s original opponent Al Iaquinta who pulled out of the fight for undisclosed reasons.

Vick was a guest on “The MMA Hour” and said he jumped at the chance to fight Gaethje, knowing a win would propel him into the Top 10.

“I’m excited. I’m like a little kid, I’m getting this opportunity against a guy I really don’t care for,” Vick said Monday on The MMA Hour. “He’s a clown in my mind, and it’s a great opportunity for me. The moment they called me, I accepted the fight. I said yes, I’ll take it, 100 percent. And I feel blessed to be where I’m at. I feel like this is my destiny, to win this fight and go on to move to bigger things and become a world champion, and I feel like this is just all part of the process, the way it was supposed to happen.”

Vick and Gaethje have history, which started after the former World Series of Fighting champion won on his UFC debut against Michael Johnson. At the end of the fight he questioned if anyone in the UFC was at his level and Vick made it clear he wanted that fight with a number of back and fourths with Gaethje on social media. Vick said he isn’t impressed by what he has seen from Gaethje’s fights so far in the UFC.

“For him, to be where he’s at, I think he’s doing a good job, because honestly I don’t think he’s a world-class fighter,” Vick said. “I don’t. I think the guy padded his record against B-level competition outside of the UFC, and now that he’s come over here, he’s been exposed. He’s been beat, he’s been knocked out. He has world-class heart, he’s a warrior, he’s not a punk -- this dude is a warrior, I understand why he’s a fan favorite. I get why fans love him so much. I mean, I like watching him fight.

“The dude’s exciting. He’s a tough guy, but I have all those attributes too. If you think that I can’t bite down on my mouthpiece and throw leather, and sit there and tough it out and just win like that -- I don’t have to fight like that, because I have a skill set. I think he lacks that. He has world-class heart, world-class grit in him, but he doesn’t have a world-class skill set, and I think he’s going to be exposed. I just don’t even think he’s a top-10 fighter in the UFC.”

Vick is confident after watching Gaethje’s last two fights he has a blueprint on how to deal with the aggressive former WSOF champion and plans on using those losses to put on an even better showing than what Gaethje’s last two opponents in Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier gave him.

“First off, I feel like I’m going to hurt him faster than a lot of those guys did,” Vick said. “I think I’m going to hurt him quicker. I’m taller, it’s going to be harder for him to get in on me, so when he comes in, he’s really going to get lit up. I think he caught them early. They didn’t move quick enough to get out of the way of some leg kicks. They didn’t check them. They should’ve just come out immediately and checked the first two of them, just stepped off. Instead, they tried to meet fire with fire a little too early, and then they were shook up a little bit from the low kicks, then from there they kind of just had to bite down.

“And they bit down on their mouthpieces, and they basically showed they have more will than him also. I mean, he’s a tough dude and has will too, but there’s plenty of us in the UFC who have that. They showed it as well.”

Vick believes Gaethje is far from the most skilled opponent he’s fought, mentioning Joseph Duffy, Francisco Trinaldo and even Valmir Lazaro as opponents he rates above Gaethje in regards to skill and ability.

“[Gaethje] fights that way every fight, and this is what people don’t understand, is, the reason why he fights like this -- and I’m really not trying to discredit him, I’m really not; I mean this when I say this, even though me and him have our personal issues -- but the guy; he fights the way he fights because he has no choice,” Vick said. “He has a short reach, he’s not very fast, he’s not that athletic. He fights with the attributes he has. The only way he can win is to bite down on his mouthpiece and break people. He throws tons of low kicks because he’s really hardly even flexible enough to throw high kicks.

“He doesn’t have a lot of attributes, so he did great with what he had. So he has no choice but to fight in those ways. A lot of us that do have grit and toughness just like he does, we have other options. I can put on a show for the fans and not get beat in my head for 15 minutes. I can just go out there and knock somebody out. Now, granted my last fight wasn’t maybe as exciting as people wanted it to be, but before that, I highlight-reeled three people in a row. So I can put on exciting fights without taking beatings. He can’t. He has to take a beating; if not, he’s never going to have a chance to win.”
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