Though 2018 was the least active of featherweight prospect Vince Fricilone’s career, it nonetheless was a very big year for him.
After picking up a unanimous decision victory over Johnavan Vistante at Alaska FC 136 to kick off the year, Fricilone spent the remainder of the year on the mend from injuries as well as making a change in teams.
“I fought in January and then I had some injuries that kept me out a lot longer than I would have liked,” Fricilone told MMAWeekly.com. “Then after that I ended up moving out to Colorado to train at Factory X in October. That’s about 2018 (in a nutshell).
“It was difficult because I didn’t like being out, but really a lot of good thing happened over the year partly because of the injury. It was a good year to take a step back, deal with the injuries and come out here with a new team. I definitely took some benefits away from the whole situation.”
Fricilone feels that in order to progress in his career he had to change camps, and thus at the suggestion of his manager he ended up at Factory X.
“I knew I needed to expand out of Alaska, so I travelled and checked out some other gyms,” said Fricilone. “Jason House told me Factory X was a good gym, so I came out here for a week, trained, checked it out, spoke with the coaches, went home and I was back out here a week later and have been here ever since.
“It’s a great team. The room is packed full of killers. I’ve improved a lot everywhere since I’ve been here.”
On Friday in Albuquerque, N.M., Fricilone (8-1) will have his first bout in over a year when he takes on Toninho Gavinho (8-4) in a featherweight bout at LFA 58.
This article first appeared at News – MMAWeekly.com
