“Yes, sir, you can,” laughs Parsons, a Dana White’s Contender Series graduate who makes his first walk to the Octagon as a UFC fighter on Saturday against British vet Danny Roberts. It’s been a rough year-and-a-half of waiting, but the Las Vegan is healthy, happy, and ready to start throwing hands again.
“That’s life, good and bad,” he said of his time on the sidelines. “But I’ve been healthy for a while now and I just was struggling a little bit with my weight. But then, finally, it kind of got to a point where I just said, ‘Hey, book me a fight.’ If this doesn’t help me cut the weight, the motivation of so much being on the line…then it’s sink or swim.”
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Parsons hit his mark on the scales, coming in at 171 pounds for his bout with Roberts, and now all that’s left is resuming a career that was picking up speed when he earned his UFC contract with a split decision win over Solomon Renfro on DWCS.
For reference, the three fighters who also won contracts that night in Vegas – Piera Rodriguez, Caio Borralho and Armen Petrosyan – have fought three, four and four times, respectively in the UFC since. So, he’s missed a lot, but he also knew he had a place to compete in the big show, something he didn’t have before that fight, where he was battling to get noticed, yet still staying positive as he passed the UFC APEX every day on the way to practice.
“I would say that during that time was when things were going really well, and it actually pumped me up,” he said. “I’ve had plenty of ups and downs in my career, but during that time where I was living really close and passing it all the time, that’s when I was on my win streak that got me into the UFC. So, during that time, it was actually motivating. It was nice to pass it and say to myself, ‘I’m going to be there real soon.’”
He got his wish. Just like he knew he would.
“I always knew I had what it takes,” said Parsons, whose win over Renfro lifted his pro record to 8-2. “I always knew that I was skilled enough and I was tough enough. But you’ve got to be more than tough and dedicated and skilled; you’ve got to build the hype and go on that win streak. There’s a lot of people out there that are good and dedicated their whole lives to try to get into the UFC and it didn’t work out. So sometimes, the stars got to align.”
Parsons thought that they did when he beat Renfro to push his winning streak to five, but injuries and a scrapped bout with Micheal Gillmore in February of 2022 kept those stars out of whack. But now they’re aligned in a fighting formation and Parsons can’t wait to step into the O2 Arena as the “bad guy” against the London-born Roberts.
“It can’t be too bad,” laughed Parsons when asked about being booed in London. He’s probably right, considering that his style in the Octagon makes it impossible for anyone to dislike him. Did “The Sluggernaut” nickname give anything away? Probably, but the 31-year-old does have a purple belt in jiu-jitsu, so perhaps anything goes this weekend.
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“I’m open for the fight going anywhere,” Parsons said. “But I was thinking recently, ‘All right, if someone was going to fight me, how would they game plan for me?’ And I think a good game plan against someone like me would be to mix in the wrestling, mix up the pace of the fight, the way the energy gets spent, and mix up the rhythm of the fight. And then give me something to worry about, to take away from the striking rhythm. I know Danny’s more of a striker but he seems to grapple real well. So I feel like that could be a good game plan for them if they wanted to try to use wrestling or anything like that to kind of wear down the striking a little bit. But who knows what they’re thinking.”
We know what Parsons is thinking and he’s not planning to shoot for the ankles.
“Yeah, I’m not,” he laughs. “Over the years, I’ve always worked my wrestling and trying to get better in that aspect. And sometimes in sparring, I don’t shoot takedowns because wrestling is just another level of cardio.”
And striking? Well, let’s just say Parsons has done 30-minute rounds of sparring with middleweight contender Chris Curtis that were all striking.
“Man, I ate a lot of body shots,” said Parsons, who says this all matter of factly, like everyone does 30-minute rounds. But that’s the grit that got him here, and if he hears a few boos on Saturday, it doesn’t matter.
“I don’t know what it is, but when I’m walking out to that ring, I just feel so happy,” he said. “I don’t know what it is. I feel happy and I don’t get too nervous. I really know how to dial in and just focus on the task at hand, and that is, I’m not letting this dude hurt me. And the only way for him to not hurt me is I got to hurt him. And when it comes to that, I really don’t lose focus, especially once I’m in there and I’m standing across from my opponent, I’m all-in.”
