“Remember this? I’m still here. Never give up. Never stop. Stage 4 cancer. A year to live. Now, five years later, I’m still here, still grinding. This life is worth fighting for. Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay savage! 👊🏻” Mike Swick wrote on X.
The post caught the eye of Bruce Buffer, who quoted it on Thursday, Oct. 8, with a short reply that read like one of his introductions: “Warrior Spirit Forever Champ!!! Cheers, Buff.” Swick didn’t share details about the type of cancer or his treatment in the post. He gave the diagnosis, the prognosis he was handed, and the plain fact that he outlived it by four years and counting.
For anyone who watched the UFC’s early reality TV era, Swick is a familiar face. The Houston native, born June 19, 1979, came up through Katy High School and started in taekwondo as a kid, inspired by The Karate Kid and dreaming of becoming a Navy SEAL. He went 5-0 on smaller shows, including early WEC events, before Chris Leben knocked him out 45 seconds into Round 2 in a WEC middleweight title fight.
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That loss sent him to the first season of The Ultimate Fighter, where he fought at light heavyweight on Randy Couture’s team, with Leben as a teammate who kept bringing up their fight. Stephan Bonnar submitted him with a triangle armbar at 4:55 of Round 1 in the semifinals.
Then came the stretch that made his name. Swick knocked out Gideon Ray in 22 seconds at UFC Ultimate Fight Night, and Mike Goldberg started calling him “Quick.” He backed it up with first-round guillotines over Steve Vigneault at UFC 58 and Joe Riggs at UFC 60 (he jokingly named the choke after himself), then outpointed former title challenger David Loiseau at UFC 63 despite damaging ligaments in his hand. Yushin Okami handed him his first UFC loss at UFC 69.
A drop to welterweight revived him. He beat Josh Burkman by majority decision in the UFC Fight Night 12 main event, snapped Marcus Davis’s six-fight UFC win streak with a unanimous decision at UFC 85, and stopped Jonathan Goulet at UFC: Fight for the Troops.
After he was done competing, Swick built something that outlasted his fight career: AKA Thailand, the gym he founded in Phuket. Five years past a one-year sentence, the guy they called Quick is still showing up to grind.
