Following a three year layoff due to injury, lightweight Vinc Pichel returned at UFC Fight Night 110 in June and was able to pick up where he left off by defeating Damien Brown via first round TKO, and picking up his third win in a row in the process.
According to Pichel, the fight with Brown played out exactly how he and his team had planned, giving him his most decisive win in several years.
“I watched a little bit of tape on (Brown) and I saw he liked to come in with combos; he liked to be a fast combo striker, especially after me throwing something I knew he would come back quick,” Pichel told MMAWeekly.com.
“I was kind of planning on watching him and seeing his movements, seeing how he reacted and how he attacked me back, and use it against him. That’s what I did. It worked out to a T from what we planned. I’m super happy with the performance. It was a good comeback fight for me.”
Even though he had been out action for three years, Pichel and his coaches saw that he was able to get back into fight mode without much adjustment for time lost.
“Honestly I jumped right back in like no time had passed,” said Pichel. “I have a good natural ability to where I was out of the gym for a year or two years because of that injury and I came right back, and it was like I never left.
“When I came back into fighting I was feeling better and more refreshed because my mind is clear and I’m not so burnt out and overworked. I felt really good coming back into the gym and training hard for my fight.”
Pichel (10-1) will look to keep his momentum rolling into 2018 when he takes on Joaquim Silva (10-0) in a preliminary 155-pound bout at UFC on Fox 27 on January 27 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“I believe he’s a good ground guy, and he says he’s a Muay Thai practitioner, but I don’t feel like I see anything too threatening from him, honestly,” Pichel said of Silva. “I think it’s going to be a tough fight. I don’t think it’s going to be an easy win for me. But I do expect to win this fight and I do feel like my skillset is going to be too much for him.”
After missing out on a significant amount of time, Pichel is concerned only with being as busy in 2018 as his schedule will allow him to be.
“After my last fight I wanted to get back in there, but I was kind of unlucky and didn’t get a fight until right now,” said Pichel. “After this fight, I’m going to try to fight again around June.
“I’m in school right now, and I can only miss so many days of school, so I could take another fight between January and June, but if I do that I’m going to have to wait to fight again until summer. I want to get the fights in and go on that Cowboy (Cerrone) run.”
