Richie Vaculik

Richard Vaculik, known as Richie, is a mixed martial artist and big wave surfer from Maroubra in Sydney, Australia. He was born in Sydney to a Czech immigrant father and an English mother from Manchester, grew up surfing Maroubra Beach alongside the Bra Boys, and was introduced to Brazilian jiu-jitsu at eighteen. He made his professional mixed martial arts debut in November 2006 with a first-round knockout, won titles in Proud Warriors Productions and Combat8, and lost a challenge for the Cage Fighting Championship bantamweight title in 2010. He was cast on The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes in 2012, made his UFC flyweight debut in December 2013, beat Roldan Sangcha-an in 2014, and was cut from the UFC in 2016 after losing to Danny Martinez at UFC 193. Away from the cage he surfs some of the world's most dangerous breaks, including The Right and Shipsterns Bluff in Australia and Teahupoo in Tahiti, and appears in the documentary Fighting Fear and the television series The Crew.