MMA fans likely can be forgiven if they’ve forgotten about Jonny Parsons, but “The Sluggernaut” wants to make sure that proves foolhardy.
Parsons (9-3 MMA, 1-0 UFC) returns next month after a layoff of what will be around 40 months – more than three years. He’s set to take on welterweight Jose Souza (9-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) next month at UFC Fight Night 293 at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas, where he’s based. But even before this lengthy layoff, his UFC start was slow, as well.
Parsons won on DWCS in 2021. He was set for a UFC debut, the first fight on the contract he won against Solomon Renfro, in early 2022, but had to pull out. He didn’t make his official debut till July 2023 – and it was stellar. His knockout of Danny Roberts was a bonus-winner.
Then things stopped going his way.
“After my debut in 2023 against Danny Roberts, I got the Fight of the Night bonus and I was on a high,” Parsons told MMA Junkie Radio. “I went back to the gym training very casually and I just kept re-injuring myself. The biggest thing that I had going on for a while was I had a hip flexor and a groin issue where I would have these episodes where I couldn't even walk, could barely even lift my legs off the ground. But with a lot of physical therapy and strength conditioning here at the (UFC Performance Institute), it's been like a year since any kind of episodes where I was in a lot of pain and immobile.”
That made Parsons ready to get back in the cage. And even though his contract with the UFC started literally around five years ago, he’ll be on just his second bout in the promotion.
He said the rehab process was “extensive,” but it also may have taught him that the way he used to train at Wanderlei Silva’s Las Vegas gym wasn’t going to work out now that he’s 35. Now he’ll do things differently in the lead-up to fight night – and he thinks the layoff might even benefit him.
“It was kind of hard to break that habit, but now I'm set,” Parsons said. “I’ve built a lot of good training habits and I've been able to train hard consistently for a while now. Maybe this is just the way it was meant to be. I think I'm an even better fighter than I was. Going back the last five years, this is probably the strongest I've felt.”
Besides, he thinks Souza might be in trouble, given his history of being out for a proverbial minute, then coming back.
“I’m no stranger to coming back off breaks, and honestly, every time I came back from a long break, I usually won in devastating fashion,” Parsons said. “I wouldn't be surprised if that happened on Nov. 7.
“… I’ve been told in the past that I'm a brawler, but I'm very technical and it might take someone with a lot of technical knowledge to see the little nuances and appreciate it. Sometimes people like to see guys slug it out. As a fighter, I appreciate seeing those little techniques and little things that maybe not everybody notices. But I would tell the fans to expect really hard kicks and if we end up in the pocket, he's going down.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: ‘Sluggernaut’ Jonny Parsons wonders: To slug, or not, in UFC return?