“I think it’s important to have experience and maturity to come in here,” said Parnasse, offering his perspective on making the move to the biggest stage in the sport. “I’ve had 25 fights outside, and I think that’s really important to be able to understand your opponents, be able to understand the game and to come in here.
“I have a lot of finishes, and they see I have a lot of knockouts, so they know I’m going to put on an excellent fight,” he added, opining as to why the UFC came calling.
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It’s a pretty accurate assessment of things given this weekend’s circumstances.
Not many fighters have rolled into a main event in their UFC debuts. Anderson Silva did it, as did Ronda Rousey and Gilbert Melendez. More recently, Kai Asakura arrived from Rizin and stepped straight into a flyweight title fight opposite Alexandre Pantoja, but the overall list is relatively short, and while this weekend’s fight card taking place in Paris certainly adds to the logic in sliding Parnasse into a headlining position straight out of the gate, it still speaks volumes about how the promotion sees the lightweight newcomer.