Drew Fickett
Drew ‘ The Master’ Fickett
Drew Fickett was wrestling at a community college in Tucson, Arizona when he became interested in MMA. During college Drew was injured in major car accident while riding his motorcycle. “I was hit by a truck and broke my knee and two bones in my foot…I spent like four years practicing in college, but I never really got to compete too much because of injury, and the lack of a red shirt I got.” He added, “I couldn’t do anything for like a year. I mean I still tried to lift, but obviously I couldn’t lift my lower body.”
Drew fought MMA before attending college. He commented, “Well I had been fighting in like Rage in the Cage when I first started. You know beating up a bunch of bums. After my injury I decided to, you know, jump right back into a fight, and I trained. That was actually the first time I fought Edwin Dewees was like right after a year of healing up and stuff.”
Drew made his UFC debut at UFC 51, in a losing effort against Nick Diaz. A jump to a big show, like UFC was a bit overwhelming to a young fighter. About his loosing effort against Diaz, Fickett said, “I just thank Nick for basically fighting me, and giving the opportunity for me to fight a worthy opponent my first fight. It’s not like he was some bum. You know? I really don’t know if I could have beat anybody that night. Not taking anything away from Nick because he’s an excellent fighter.”
Drew added, “I mean it’s one thing to fight in another show, and it’s one thing to fight in the UFC. At the time I had like 26 fights. I thought I was a much more experienced person, and it was actually quite the opposite. I mean I felt like it was my first fight ever. I was, I hate to admit it, but I was in tears the morning of the fight. I was so nervous, and obviously any fighter knows you’re not afraid of any opponent. It’s just the fear of competition, and I couldn’t handle the whole UFC, the lights, miking up my corner man, all the cameras, and pictures, and all that jazz. It was just too much for me, and I just froze.”
In his next fight Drew dominated Josh Neer and finished the fight in the first round by Submission (Rear Naked Choke).
