Las Vegas, NV – UFC heavyweight Josh Parisian is back in the octagon to take on Jamal Pogues at UFC Vegas 69 on Saturday night at the UFC APEX.
Parisian (15-5) was supposed to fight Chase Sherman back in Nov. 2022, but had what was described as a medical emergency and pulled from the fight the morning of the event.
“Yeah that was a weird situation a scary situation for me. I woke up about midnight, 12:30, and I was having bad heart palpitations. My heart rate was like elevated, and I was kind of getting nervous, and I was getting a little nauseous,” Parisian told Cageside Press among other media.
Parisian couldn’t shake the feeling even after attempting to go back to sleep.
“I tried to fall asleep, and I laid there for another hour-and-a-half, 2 hours, and I woke up my coach and I’m like hey man something’s wrong with me,” Parisian continued.
After making contact with hotel security Parisian was sent to the emergency room where he was checked out by medical personnel.
“They hooked me up to IV and all that stuff, and they didn’t see anything wrong, but I just felt like I was…I thought I was having a heart attack. Specially with all these things with young athletes dying from heart stuff it was like a really scary situation for me,” he said.
“The whole thing was like really disappointing because I’ve had nearly 50 fights, maybe more than 50 fights now, and that’s never happened. I’ve never pulled from a fight. I’ve never once pulled from a fight not even the day of.”
Unfortunately that was not an isolated incident.
“I had another situation the day I got back from Vegas, and I had another one two days after that which was the worst one I had had. UFC set up an appointment with a cardiologist and he checked me out. Had me do a stress test. They couldn’t even get my hear rate high enough because it’s meant for old people,” Parisian said.
The doctors couldn’t really find an issue with Parisian telling him he’s healthy.
“I have a PV…PVC, or P-something-C, where if something happens early a valve does something early, he said the only way to fix it at this point is to go in through an artery and fry a nerve which has it’s own risks involved as well. But he’s like you’re fine, and since then he gave me a medication. It was a non-beta blocker. It was fine for me to take it,” he said.
“And I’ve only had to take it twice since I had it, but I think just knowing that I’m ok.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Josh Parisian above. Parisian faces Jamal Pogues at UFC Vegas 69 on Saturday night at the UFC APEX.
