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
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“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
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“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
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“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.