Preston Parsons surprised by Matthew Semelsberger’s toughness: ‘His arm popped’
LAS VEGAS – Preston Parsons beat Matthew Semelsberger with a unanimous decision Saturday to close out the preliminary card at UFC Fight Night 234 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
Take a look inside the fight with Parsons, who got back in the win column following a split decision loss to Trevin Giles about 10 months ago.
Preston Parsons vs. Matthew Semelsberger
Result: Preston Parsons def. Matthew Semelsberger via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Updated records: Parsons (11-4 MMA, 2-2 UFC), Semelsberger (11-7 MMA, 5-5 UFC)
Key stats: Parsons landed seven takedowns and won the striking battle 116-33.
Parsons on the fight's key moment
“I feel great about it. I feel like executed exactly the way I wanted to and the way my coaches and my corners wanted me to. I was following direction very well and it led to the victory.”
Parsons on learning from past setbacks
“A loss is never easy to take, but you can do one of two things from it. You can either quit or you can learn from it, and I feel like I’ve learned from my past defeats. I lost to (Daniel Rodriguez). I lost to Trevin Giles. My coaches saw the adjustments that needed to be made and encouraged me and told me what I need to do and pretty much guided me how to improve in the areas that I needed to improve, which were my explosiveness, my working at range, my flow grappling – just a little bit of everything.”
Cortes-Acosta on what he wants nextParsons on what he wants next
“I don’t really have a specific guy that I would like to fight. Obviously, I would like to fight up. I want to fight the tough guys. I believe that I have what it takes to be the welterweight champion, so I want to fight whatever guys would lead me to that title fight. But now, I don’t have a specific person in mind. Maybe after this fight, I can sit down and look at the the roster and try to look for an opponent, but I’m not picking and choosing opponents. I’m 2-2 in the UFC. I’m going to take what they gave me, and hopefully it’s a guy that’s ranked higher than me so I can get take their number. I’m very happy that I fought at the beginning of this year. That way, I can hopefully get two or three more in before the end of the year – maybe even four.”
To hear more from Parsons, check out the video of the full post-fight interview above.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 234.
