“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is a perfect description for the one-armed heavyweight fighter Joshua Rector. Recently, he got the first TKO victory of his career, finishing Colby Carter in less than two minutes.
Rector is a US Army veteran who was deployed to Iraq in 2010. During his tour of duty, a freak accident happened when the driver of the Humvee he was in, accidentally rolled the vehicle.
Rector, who was the Humvee’s machine gunner, got his forearm severed from the armor protecting the turret. Following the accident, a part of Rector’s left arm had to be amputated and he was medically retired in 2014.
“I started practicing Jiu-jitsu in 2009 but didn’t really start training to fight until 2011,” Rector told MyMMANews. “One of my buddies from my unit, Miles McDonald, was an amateur cage fighter and after going to one of his fights I found a gym to start training at full time.”
He also believes that his disability won’t put him at a disadvantage, despite what many people think.
“Despite what a lot of people think looking from the outside it’s not that much of a disadvantage as you would think,” Rector said. “Everything I’ve trained, I have to learn my own way. It’s just like anything else, there’s a way to do it.”
“No one wants to be the guy who got beat by a guy with one arm and nobody wants to be the guy who beat a guy with one arm,” he said.
And recently, he beat a debuting fighter Colby Carter in Fight Hard MMA main card in June. During the fight, he successfully took Carter to the ground and unleashed several unanswered ground and pounds. And after a few seconds of barrage, the referee stopped the fight.
Rector holds an amateur record of 5-4 with four submissions and one knockout. His recent win over Carter is his first win since 2014.
In order to sharpen his skills, Rector is training at a variety of gyms. Gracie Humaita in Joplin, Missouri, Joplin Judo, and Mosberg Boxing are some of the gyms he currently trains at.