LAS VEGAS – Josh Parisian is just happy he’ll get back in the cage Saturday. Winning will be the icing on the cake.
This past November, Parisian was pulled from a heavyweight fight with Chase Sherman when he experienced heart palpitations before the fight. After some checkups and testing, doctors cleared him to get back in – but not without some nerves.
“That was a weird situation, a scary situation for me,” Parisian said at Wednesday’s media day for UFC Fight Night 219. “I just woke up about midnight, 12:30 (a.m.), and I was having bad heart palpitations. And then my heart rate was elevated, and then I was kind of getting nervous, and I was getting a little nauseous, and 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.’
“… 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 don’t know – I thought I was having a heart attack. And especially with all these things with young athletes dying from heart stuff, it was like a really scary situation for me. The whole thing was 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.”
Parisian said he had a couple other incidents that eventually led to a cardiologist appointment, a stress test and a medication if it’s needed – but for now, he’s been given the all clear.
He suspects it was anxiety getting the better of him.
“I think just knowing that I’m okay stopped (it happening). I think it was anxiety spirals, because I’m going to get in a fight,” Parisian said. “My heart is doing something weird. People are dying from it, and now my anxiety is going crazy. So I really think I just had (anxiety), and I’m not an anxious person, so it was very foreign for me to have that. After somebody’s like, ‘Hey, you’re fine,’ I mean, the anxiety settled down. When I have a dude that does this for a living is like, ‘You’re fine,’ OK – that’s awesome.”
Saturday, Parisian (15-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC) returns in a featured fight on the UFC Fight Night 219 main card at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas against Jamal Pogues (9-3 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who will be making his UFC debut on the heels of a second win on Dana White’s Contender Series this past August.
Parisian said he’s particularly motivated for this fight.
“I haven’t really figured out why I’m so excited for this fight because I’m normally not,” he said. “I’ll sit here and I’ll tell you I’m excited, but I’m nervous. And I get here and I don’t like the process and I don’t like anything. And after the fight, it’s always fine. But I’m actually excited right now.
“… I feel really good about the match. He’s a tough guy. He’s a confident guy in confidence as a tool in itself. And I think that one thing I don’t have to worry about as much is, I don’t think he’s as hard of a hitter as some of the hitters I’ve fought. And that takes a whole lot of nerves away from it there.”
Parisian has been up and down with the UFC since he came to the promotion from DWCS, himself, in 2020. He’s alternated wins and losses in his four fights with the UFC, but is coming off a second-round TKO of Alan Baudot in June 2022.
Still, something about that fight was off – and Parisian thinks he may have things corrected going into this one.
“In the last fight, I didn’t feel courageous,” Parisian said. “I felt scared, and I’ve always thought I was a courageous person. In that moment, I did not feel courageous. I need to remind myself that I am that person, that I am courageous – but I am who I say I am.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 219.
