Junior Hicks got his combat sports career started in MMA but is a lifelong athlete having NJCAA football experience with Iowa Western and winning a national championship at that level in 2012. Since then, Hicks began his amateur MMA career having fought for multiple titles and winning one in 2014 on an Iowa regional promotion, Fight Night at Fort Frenzy. While he sat at 2-2 in professional MMA before his BKFC debut, Hicks continues to work on his striking and focus on his bare-knuckle career after dropping his first performance.

Hicks opened up his own gym, Jokers Fitness Factory in Greenfield, Iowa to give back to his community something that he feels would have helped him as a child growing up, being told that he wasn’t intelligent. He leaned on sports and physical activity to compensate for the negativity that surrounded him and now he has a solid family life with his wife and two kids.

Hicks admits that he wasn’t born with god-given athleticism and believes that he has to outwork anyone that he has to toe the line against. He and his family live in the gym and he continues to focus on his striking while his wife has stepped up to help run the business side of things. With a Bachelor’s Degree in recreation which he obtained through his accomplishments in football, he continues to look to improve and look better fight after fight in the Squared Circle.