James Wilks

From CageWiki

1 Profile
2 Early Career
3 The Ultimate Fighter
4 Mixed martial arts record
5 Gallery
6 External links

Profile

James "Lightning" Wilks (born May 4, 1978) is a British and American professional mixed martial artist training out of the Combat Submission Wrestling team.

He stands 6 ft. 1 in. (185 cm) tall and fights in the welterweight division (170 lbs.).

Wilks was The Ultimate Fighter: United States vs. United Kingdom welterweight winner and currently fights as a welterweight for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Early Career

James Wilks made his professional mixed martial arts debut on October 12, 2003 for the awkwardly titled, Univeral Above Ground Fighting promotion. He faced future TUF 6 contestant, Roman Mitichyan in his debut and defeated him via armbar submission in the second round.

In his next bout in August of 2004, Wilks faced future "Fight Quest" host, Jimmy Smith at a King of the Cage event and was submitted with a kneebar in just under two minutes of the first round.

Wilks bounced back from the loss with a TKO over Ray Lizama in his next bout just over a month later.

After a year and a few months off, Wilks returned to competition on March 11, 2006 where he was defeated by Patrick Speight via unanimous decision after three rounds.

Wilks followed that loss with three successive victories reaching up to October 25, 2008.

The Ultimate Fighter

In late 2008, Wilks was selected as a welterweight contestant for the ninth season of The Ultimate Fighter, The Ultimate Fighter: United States vs. United Kingdom. Wilks earned his place in the quarter finals with a 30 second heel hook submission win over the highly favored Che Mills in the preliminary stage.

On episode 6, Wilks was selected by US coach, Dan Henderson to face Frank Lester. Leading into the bout, Lester showed great animosity towards Wilks and even stated he planned to knock some of Wilks' teeth out. Come fight time, it was instead Lester's teeth that would be knocked out as a big knee from Wilks dislodged Lester's fake teeth. At the conclusion of round 1, Lester's teeth had to be pulled from his mouth guard before it could be reinserted into his mouth. After a slight delay, round 2 got underway and Wilks clearly began to take control. Wilks moved to mount after a successful takedown and locked up an armbar which forced the tap at 3:06 of round 1.

After Lester was brought back into the competition once Jason Pierce was eliminated, he defeated David Faulkner via TKO to earn a spot in the semi-finals. Wilks and Lester were matched up again with Wilks overcoming a shaky first round to pound out Lester in the third cementing his spot in the finale.

Wilks met Team USA's DaMarques Johnson at The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale and looked very impressive as he completed destroyed Johnson on the ground, eventually submitting him with a rear naked choke just before the first round expired to be crowned TUF 9's welterweight tournament champion.