Our follow-up interview with UFC welterweight Preston Parsons as he prepares for his upcoming fight in Las Vegas on April 23rd.


Grapplermag: Walk me through the process of getting the fight booked in Las Vegas on April 23rd.

(*Parson’s opponent for this event has changed since this interview.)


Preston Parsons: “My manager Steve Swedish texted me and just said, ‘Call me, I have big fight news.’ I called him back, because I had a feeling it had something to do [with the UFC]. Signed the contract the next day. I tried to get on the Jacksonville card April 9th, being on that would be awesome. I requested that, but he got back to me and said it couldn’t happen. It’s a filled-up card, every fighter wants to be on that card. The bigger names get their choosing first.”


-How did you get involved with Steve and Ruby Sports Entertainment?


“Through Mitchell [Chamale]. Mitchell with Combat Night texted me and said he met a nice manager and knows I’ve never really had good management in the past, so he recommended [him]. Nice guy, easy to get along with…it’s perfect for me. He pretty much got me into the UFC in my first fight with him.” 


-Good first step then, right way to start off a relationship. And a couple other guys from here [Elevate MMA] are getting involved with him as well?


“Yes, Kuba Kaszuba, he’s 5-0, he just signed with Ruby SE too, and Steve’s also his agent. I don’t see it taking very long before he’s in the UFC, too. It’ll be cool to have more than one of us, a guy from Jacksonville, in the UFC.” 


-That’s the fastest way to get a gym noticed. All the guys from City Kickboxing: Stylebender, Volkanovski, Dan Hooker, that was a relatively obscure gym in New Zealand that became famous from all the UFC talent they produced.  


“That’s 100% right, that’s how it was at American Top Team. You look around, that guy’s on TV, that guy’s in the UFC. They’re like celebrities,  but then you see we’re all just humans. They act normal like everybody else.”


-How did the trip to Georgia come about? 


“TK mentioned it to me maybe two weeks before. He gave me plenty of time, I was the one that procrastinated until the end. He said we had a good opportunity to go up and train with some good people. I didn’t really know what to expect. I got my classes covered. 

I heard we were flying, and we get there, and it’s a small plane, only four seats. [The pilot] tells me to sit up front, and I didn’t fly the plane, but I could feel everything he was doing. He was letting me operate a lot, especially once we got up. He let me take off and try to land, but on the landing I could definitely feel him taking over.”


-There’s video of it, you can hear the pilot say, ‘Sorry for the little bumpy landing.’ The video made it seem pretty rough. (laughs)


“It was a little bumpy, but the guy knew what he was doing. After about two hours of being in the plane, I started feeling comfortable. But I’m afraid of heights, I don’t like rollercoasters, and it was both of those combined.”  




-What was your first impression of Pinnacle Athletics?


“The facility was nice, clean. It looked like somewhere I’d have a lot of fun, especially as a kid. They had a bunch of areas for baseball practice, and the weightlifting equipment was new, nice stuff. They could track your power, speed, explosion. 

We worked really hard everyday, but not to failure like I’m used to. Like in practice, we train for an hour and a half until we’re completely dead, drenched in sweat, until you can’t go on anymore. But [at Pinnacle] it was more like strengthening the muscles I don’t use as much, the ones that are weaker. 

We did a lot of recovery stuff: using golf balls, lacrosse balls, foam rollers, which is cool because I do that in the morning for an hour and a half to two hours and then train right after that. I felt strong in training.”   


-Any other recovery methods you use or would like to try? Acupuncture or cupping?


“It’s funny, I was just talking about that earlier. I’ve never done acupuncture, but I want to. I’ve heard a lot about it recently. I’ve had someone do cupping on me a handful of times maybe, not very much. I’ve had massages. Twice a week now Shelby Koren, one of the other fighters [from Elevate], she does body work stuff, massage. It hurts, but it’s definitely good. She uses the Theragun.” 


-That’s that good hurt. (laughs)


“She digs on my feet, she talks about the same stuff, the scar tissue. She said a lot of the same stuff the guys at Pinnacle said. I can feel it crunching and rolling, all of that. It’s the opposite of relaxing.” 


-Where do you find balance between adding new training methods into your routine versus doing the same things that have made you successful in the past?


“The gym is always going to be there. I feel like we’ve got a good group of guys here. It’s a good base. I can always come back here and drill, I can show stuff I’ve learned at other schools. So I think it’s important that I go to other places and get different looks. 

It’s not so much that I learned new techniques [at other gyms], but just kind of seeing how they moved, because every team moves a little bit differently. When I went to Alliance, they had really high-level wrestling, they had a good mix of guys. Or look at Team Alpha Male, they fight similarly.” 


-How was your time at American Top Team Atlanta and Team Lima?


“Dhiego, as soon as I met him, introduced himself, nice, friendly, laughing, starting conversation. Actually wanted to talk to me, seemed like. They were really strong at wrestling. At the end of every single round on sparring day, they shot in for a takedown and finished it.    

That’s why I like going there. If I roll with Dhiego I can see the way he moves, especially if we’re slow rolling. I can see stuff he likes to work, where he’s strong, how he positions his hips, and pretty much copy what they do. [He and Douglas] have been top level for years.”


-You got some rounds in with Tresean Gore, too, right?


“Yeah, going into it I didn’t really know who he was, because I don’t follow The Ultimate Fighter as much as I used to. I don’t watch fights as much as I used to. I try to follow my weight class. So I’m sparring with Tresean, and I could tell he was good. He threw some of the hardest leg kicks I’ve ever been hit with. And I didn’t check at all.”  




-Something I think is interesting about combat sports is peaking on the day of the fight, timing it to where you’re at your best at that moment. Describe how you try to achieve that.


“That’s actually a good question. I’ve been thinking more about that recently. I’ve had problems with that in the past, peaking and being at my prime before a fight. I’ve had fights where I felt I was at my peak recovery-wise, I had energy, I replenished right from the weight cut. And I’ve had fights where I didn’t feel that way.

I’m still learning. I think a lot of the stuff I learned at Pinnacle is active recovery so I can keep moving. A week before the fight, two weeks before, I’m still training my ass off. You know the other guy is training. Only way to work out the nerves is to go train. When I sit and do nothing I get inside my head.” 


-Does being signed to the UFC change your mindset? You’ve been a fighter and professional athlete for years, but does that sort of legitimize everything a little more? 


“When I think about it, it does. When I reflect on it and think to myself, ‘Man, I’m in the UFC’...I guess it hasn’t really set in. It’s hard to explain, because it’s all I’ve wanted for the last ten years. Now it’s here, and nothing’s really changed. Now it’s on to something bigger.” 


-Is there a part of you that’s like, ‘I can never have a cookie again’? 


“That’s why I’m taking things so seriously this camp. This is my opportunity, now’s the time to do everything right like we always talked about. ‘If I get to the UFC, I do everything this way.’ Now it’s my time to do it that way.”  


-30-



Tim Kline

Brandon Ibarra

Brandon attended the College of Journalism at the University of Florida. He has one stripe on his white belt.