Parke: Why I have no intention of ever going back to the UFC

Norman Parke lost his first MMA fight. Then he won ten in a row, lost one, and won six more in a row. That got him into the UFC where he started with a 4-0-1 run, with the majority draw coming from a point deduction for holding a Brazilian’s shorts in Brazil.

He then lost Split Decisions to Gleison Tibau and Francisco Trinaldi, beat Reza Madadi, dropped a decision to Rustam Khabilov, and was released. The usual process would be to fight in smaller shows, do well, and get back into the UFC. However, during a recent interview with Submission Radio, Parke said he is happy where he is at Poland’s KSW.

“When I was released from the UFC I stopped for like… I trained seven weeks for the Andrew Fisher fights. Whereas up until then I did absolutely nothing for the whole six or seven months. Not one thing, I did. Just sat and got blitzed and f***en just partied and just kind of cleared the air a wee bit and got over that whole UFC thing. But here I am on a good show and getting paid good money to fight, where everyone keeps talking about, ‘When are you going back to the UFC?’ I have no intentions to go back to the UFC. Not one. If you put a UFC contract here right now, I’m not going. I’m happy fighting for KSW. You know, when they see that, they appreciate that and they appreciate the fighter. So I’m happy to be a part of that.”

“You know, really, you’re just a number to them. That’s it. I respect the UFC, they looked after all the fighters one hundred percent, but it’s just a straight business. That’s all it is. You’re their best friend when you’re winning, and you lose a couple – they don’t care if it’s a decision or not. If you lose a couple, it’s still a loss on your record. From a business point of view, boom, you’re gone. That’s it. Goodbye. And it doesn’t matter how nice you are to them or how you took every fight that they offered you without hesitation. I could easily have turned around to a lot of fights and said, ‘Nah, I don’t want that fight.’ But I wanted to fight. I never had no protection from any company and I never intend to be protected by any company. I’m a real fighter who fights everywhere, and I’ve always did that. See here, I’m fighting in enemy territory again and that’s the way it’ll always be. I class myself as a real fighter who goes and fights anywhere. And that’s it.”

The UFC uses show-win pay structure in roughly equal amounts. For his final fight in the UFC, a loss, Parke made $24,000. Given the costs of a full camp, less taxes and management fees, there is not much left over. Double it though, and the money is decent. That puts huge pressure to not lose, and that can adversely affect the fight. By contrast, the KSW purse structure has much more up front.

“There’s no pressure on me going into this fight,” said Parke. “I don’t care if I lose this fight. Not one bit do I care. Because I’m gonna be getting paid good money anyway. It’s not like when you’re fighting for promotions and you get a show purse and double win bonus. It’s like, why don’t you just give the fighter the money, the full purse to fight? And that takes a lot of pressure off fighters. So I don’t have that pressure going into this fight. I don’t care. So when less pressure, less stress, you get to see the real fighter.

“You get a fighter and put him in there and when everything going for you is against the wall, it’s tough. You kind of hesitate and freeze. It’s like, you panic, you try your best to win but you’re trying that hard that you’re losing it. And that’s the way it is. But here, there’s no pressure. You take that pressure away and hand that guy a s***load of money or whatever makes him happy or takes the stress away – they say money doesn’t make you happy, but I tell you what, it buys you whatever the f*** you want and pays all the f***en bills. It does all that there. Then there’s less stress.”

Parke fights Mateusz Gamrot at KSW 39: Colosseum on Saturday night in Warsaw, Poland

“This is a real top-level fight, us two,” said Parke. “He knows this is dangerous, very, very dangerous. Whenever I seen him face to face out in the back after the cameras are away, I just said to him, ‘I’m your toughest fight, don’t lie to yourself. Don’t get your girlfriend Boris to stick up for you and try and translate s***, because you know what I’m saying. You know I’m a tough fight.’ I’ll tell you what, if you get me on my best day, it’s a bad, bad night and that’s a fact. I can beat anybody on my best night, anybody in the world on my best night. I know that, so f*** what everyone else says.