Courtesy photo Josh Parisian, a former Escanaba resident, is working his way up the ranks in the mixed martial arts heavyweight division.

ESCANABA — Former Escanaba resident Josh Parisian is a fighter.

Actually, he’s a professional mixed martial arts fighter who steps into cage-enclosed rings and punishes opponents. Before the bell, the 6-foot-4, 280-pound Parisian lets spectators know where his heart is.

“Every fight (in lower Michigan), I announce I’m from Escanaba, Michigan because I really love where I’m from,” Parisian said in a phone interview from downstate Howell. “I want to do great things. I want people to know I am from this small town in the U.P.”

Parisian, 27, is making a name for himself in the climb up the MMA ladder. He’s come a long way from his days in Escanaba, where he arrived in second grade and departed in 2010 to pursue serious training in the new-era sport.

It’s not for the faint of heart.

Parisian has had 26 stitches in his face and Monday he sought an X-ray for a possible fractured rib from a knee he took Saturday night.

In that heavyweight main event fight Saturday night in Wyandotte (near Detroit), Parisian lost to veteran Tony Lopez on a technical knockout with 3:27 left in the second round. He was taken down in the corner with one arm trapped by Lopez’s legs and his other arm also trapped.

“I was unable to escape or protect myself,” said Parisian, who suffered torn cartilage in his rib cage.

It was Parisian’s first loss in two years and dropped his professional record to 5-2.

Still, Parisian is considered a top-ranked heavyweight in Michigan and one of the top-ranked heavyweights in the Midwest not under the elite Ultimate Fighting Championship umbrella.

He is currently not under any contract with any promotion.

In MMA, fighters duel in different disciplines like judo, karate, jiu jitsu and wrestling for 5-minute rounds. The object is to inflict punishment on your opponent and minimize the punishment you receive.

How did Parisian get mixed up in martial arts?

“I had a tough upbringing,” said Parisian, who played one year of football at a lower level in Escanaba and graduated from an alternative high school. “We moved a lot. I changed high schools six times.”

In Escanaba, Parisian attended Bay College for two years. He had friends in town who followed MMA and decided to discuss the sport for a speech class assignment at Bay.

Jim Pryal was in the same class and invited Parisian to attend some after-school workouts in the Escanaba High School wrestling room.

“I went there and it gave me confidence,” Parisian recalled. “I did it for a few weeks and months and ran with it. I didn’t have a lot of confidence at that time. It made me feel so good. I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to train full time.”

Parisian decided to take his fondness for MMA to Lower Michigan. He moved in with an uncle and worked for his construction company while training at a gymnasium in Romulus.

He is now affiliated with Team SFS — Scorpion Fighting System — a Martial Arts School in Brighton. And he is mentored by his coach, James Gray, who has grown a team from only a few individuals training in his basement.

Parisian started in the sport as an amateur and compiled a 16-6-1 record in 23 fights.

In Parisian’s first fight, his opponent didn’t show up. But a promoter needed another heavyweight to replace another no-show and he called Parisian, who returned to the arena and knocked out his opponent.

He’s had the competitive bug ever since.

Parisian has had one fight in West Virginia and the rest in Michigan.

He said a fighter can make about $3,000 to $5,000 on a fight, which includes about 20 percent of tickets sold, a show purse and a doubling of the purse with a victory.

Parisian also works as a quality investor with an information technology company that sponsors him. He works under a salary and flex time to accommodate his training.

His training consists of 6- to 8-week camps involving conditioning, flexibility, strength, plyometrics and balance.

Parisian said he would have been the No. 1 ranked heavyweight not in the UFC if he would have defeated Lopez.

He plans to fight again in August or September, with the goal of making it to Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena in December when the UFC returns to Michigan. One more victory should help him in his goal as a heavyweight, which is a sparse division for MMA fighters.

Parisian plans to work more on his mental approach as he moves forward.

“I really analyze everything,” he said. “This last fight, my worst enemy was my own mind. I built him up too big in my head. When you usually get in a fight with somebody it’s a spur of the moment.

“But when you have something planned and you think about somebody day in and day out for two months, you make it more than it is. I knew he was the No. 1 guy. Instead of fighting to win, I was fighting basically not to lose. And it didn’t work out for me.”

Parisian will keep on working toward his goal of reaching the UFC, where there is more exposure and TV time on ESPN and Fox. He’ll keep dishing out punishment and taking the hits.

And sometime in the future, Parisian plans to return to his beloved Escanaba.

“At some point, I’d like to open an MMA gym,” he said. “I feel there’s not a lot to do in Escanaba. I think it’s probably led to drug-related stuff and other things. So I’d like to go up there and open up a program.”