London, UK – Making his UFC debut in enemy territory against a hometown favorite was a tough ask for welterweight Jonny Parsons, but he turned the boos into cheers after he finished Danny Roberts at UFC London on Saturday night.
“I’m excited and I think most of my career (I’ve) had to go and fight people in their backyard so it’s nothing new for me,” Parsons told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.
“Of course they’re going to cheer for their guy, but on my way out of the octagon, on my way back here, I felt I got a lot of love from the fans. I appreciate all them. I appreciate everyone for coming out to the fight.”
Parsons faced plenty of adversity before he even stepped into the octagon with Roberts as he had to weigh-in twice to hit the contract weight for the fight.
“I probably could have sweat another five pounds if I needed to. I think it was a little bit kind of like a mental drain. I didn’t really get much sleep. I feel like crap today, but I just didn’t let anyone know,” Parsons said as he mentioned that he was just trying to stay positive.
“A fight’s a fight. You can’t always be prepared. Someone might attack you outside the parking lot you’re not going to say, ‘Oh hey man, wait a second, let’s meet back here in two weeks. I’m going to train for two weeks and then I’ll be ready alright?’. You can’t do that. Sometimes you’ve just got to fight.”
In the octagon during the interview with Michael Bisping the new UFC welterweight called out one of the UK’s favorite sons, but Parsons walked the call out back. Sort of.
“To be 100% honest…I’ve got legend Michael Bisping right here, he didn’t really ask me a question, he just kind of put the mic in front of me. I kind of choked. Maybe at some point, maybe I’ll try to make my way to lightweight. Who I really wanted to call out was, I heard MVP (Michael Venom Page) is a free agent, and there was talks of him coming to the UFC to fight,” he said.
“I’d really like to come back to London. Try to sleep a little better the next time. I don’t think MVP can hang with the wrestlers in this division so I would love to give the fans here in London, at The O2, freaking awesome striking fight. I think me and MVP could put on a show for the crowd for sure.”
Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Jonny Parson above.
