Ex-UFC champ Jamahal Hill blames injuries, lack of discipline for recent career slump

USA Today

02-07-2025

Jamahal Hill has a hard look in the mirror amid his recent losing streak.
Jamahal Hill's career has taken several hard hits in recent years, putting the former UFC champion on a three-fight losing streak, an unprecedented run for him.
In his latest defeat, which came in June at UFC on ABC 8 in Azerbaijan, Hill (12-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC) lost a one-sided unanimous decision against light heavyweight contender Khalil Rountree. Hill entered the bout with plenty of confidence, assuring fans and media that Rountree (14-6 MMA, 10-6 UFC) was not at his level of competition. "Sweet Dreams" still stands by those claims, but thinks he hasn't been up to his own level, causing the discrepancy between his comments and performance.
"A lot was made of the thing I said before the fight, me saying the comments that Khalil is not on my level, and I said the same things about my last few fights," Hill said on his YouTube channel. "But to be honest, I haven't been on my level. I haven't been on my level for quite some time."
Hill thinks his decline comes down to two factors – one he can't control and one he can.
After winning the UFC light heavyweight title against Glover Teixeira in 2023, Hill was forced to relinquish his belt after rupturing his Achilles tendon in an MMA pickup basketball game, which left him out of action for several months. Hill thinks the injury has affected his fighting greatly, more than people can imagine.
"I think people severely underestimate the injuries that I've dealt with and the challenges I've had to overcome with that," Hill said. "An Achilles tear to an athlete is a career-ender in a lot of cases and to many, many people. Then you compile that with the tears to the knees of trying to come back and force my way back. I've gone against a lot of advice that I was given by my team and people close to me."
On top of suffering a serious injury out of his control, Hill also takes some responsibility for his career rut. He admitted to not training as hard as he should be in order to compete at a high level. It's a bad habit he developed early in his career, and one that he didn't feel he needed to address due to the success he was having.
"I'm a natural talent," Hill said. "Things came naturally to me at a certain level. Before I could hang around outside of camp and do things the way I wanted to do them, and whenever I was in camp I was just able to work at a level that I feel put me in a very good position to go on and put on the performances that I put in earlier on in my career on my run to the title. ... It brings me back to a quote my coaches tole me a long time ago: 'Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.' My work and my output have to go up. I have to do more. I have to work harder and grind harder. I've entered my last three camps at the lowest, maybe 260 pounds. This last camp I was maybe at 265 pounds. That goes into that work."