Zach Kirk
Coming from a wrestling background, Zach Kirk only had a week’s worth of training in MMA when he stepped in for his first MMA fight in 2009, and he did well, forcing a corner stoppage in the second round, while he’d go on to win his next bout by TKO.
Two months after his debut Kirk’s third fight took place in his hometown in Iowa with a title opportunity on the line for the winner.
However, disaster struck only 7 seconds into the fight when Kirk was caught in a standing guillotine choke and attempted to counteract it by dropping to the mat, only to land head-first on impact.
The landing proved to be life-changing, shattering the C5 vertebrae in his neck, with bone fragments becoming lodged in his spinal cord.
Kirk went limp and realized immediately that something terrible had just occurred.
“I knew I couldn’t feel nothing,” Kirk told Sherdog two years later. “I was just scared — scared from right there.”
It would soon emerge that Kirk was paralysed from the neck down, though he has gained some limited movement over time.
