British heavyweight Mick Parkin has discussed his friendship with Tom Aspinall and Paul Craig ahead of his debut at UFC London this weekend.
Parkin will step foot inside the octagon for the very first time on July 22 at UFC London following a successful Contender Series fight last year.
Training out of Team Fish Tank in Sunderland, the 27-year-old has travelled all over the North of the UK to train with some of Britain’s best MMA talent.
He spoke about training with such talent in an exclusive interview with Combat Sports UK.
He said: “It’s amazing. I first started training at the gym I’m at now, TFT, with Phil De Fries and he would do a lot of sparring with Paul Craig.
“So, Paul would come down to spar because there’s not many big guys and we were probably the closest ones, competitively. He would travel down and do a lot of his camps here so I became friendly with him, and then I would travel up [to Scotland] and help him with his camps, maybe go up there a couple days a week and help him. That’s where that friendship came from.
“And then, my friend moved to a gym down Liverpool and was training there at Kaobon and places like that and he said there was a heavyweight there, Tom Aspinall. I think he might’ve just been in Cage Warriors [at the time] so I went down to train with him a couple of times.
“Obviously, it was amazing and then he started smashing it in the UFC. At the minute, we’re going down to Wigan, where he trains now, in camp maybe once a week for two days, do some training sessions because they’ve got loads of big guys and then come back up to the Northeast.”
Mick Parkin on UFC London Opponent Jamal Pogues
The 6’ 4” prospect is set to face fellow Contender Series alum Jamal Pogues in London. Pogues is 1-0 inside the promotion after outpointing Josh Parisian earlier this year.
Parkin described the matchup as ‘quite even’ but believes he has the correct tools to make this bout a successful one.
He said: “I think it’s a good matchup, I think he’s 10-3, obviously he’s fought in the UFC now and won one. I think it’s quite an even fight really, I’m 6-0 as a pro, he’s a bit more experienced as a professional.
“For the UFC level, he’s had one fight, I haven’t yet. I think it’s pretty fairly matched between us, I’ve been watching him, I feel like I know what he’s good at so I’ve got a good game plan for what to do on the day.”
Pogues hasn’t finished a fight since 2019 so Parkin is prepared to go all three rounds with the American.
He continued: “I always just train for the three rounds, especially at this level there’s no more easy fights. I know he’s been to the decision quite a lot so he’s ready to go three rounds but so am I.
“I feel like on the day I’m a little bit better at a few things and the things he’s good at, I’ve got a really good system to beat [him] so I’m really confident coming into it now.”
Parkin Full Exclusive Interview
You can watch the full interview with Parkin ahead of UFC London below:
Please provide transcription credit with a link to this article if you use any of these quotes.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
