LIVERPOOL, England – After 14 months on the sideline, and coming off his first UFC loss, Makwan Amirkhani was feeling particularly amped up this past week.

It meant he turned some of his angst, for lack of a better word, onto his opponent, Jason Knight, in the days leading up to the fight.

“Usually, I’m a kind person,” Amirkhani said after UFC Fight Night 130 on Sunday. “When I saw Jason for the first time in Liverpool, he just walked past me and I just kept looking. He was just walking away, and I just kept looking and I said, ‘What?’ And that’s where everything started.

“He said, ‘Touch me and we go.’ I said, ‘No, I’ll wait for Sunday.’ Every time we saw each other, it was bad blood more and more. Most of the time he was quiet. But I knew it was serious (expletive) and I’m going to murder him.”

Amirkhani (14-3 MMA, 4-1 UFC) didn’t exactly murder Knight (20-5 MMA, 4-4 UFC), proverbially or otherwise. But he did eke out a split decision on the main card at Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. The card aired on FS1 following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass.

Amirkhani took a pair of 29-28 scores from Mark Collett and Howard Hughes to get the split nod. But a third judge, Andy Roberts, gave Knight all three rounds and a 30-27. That score, Amirkhani could not understand – to put it mildly.

“(Expletive) him,” Amirkhani said of Roberts’ scorecard. “He was drunk. He was drunk, definitely. I was (worried) – when I heard (Knight’s) name (with the first score), I was like, ‘Woah.’ … I was happy the two others had brains in their heads.”

Next up, the Iran-born Finnish featherweight would love another big test: Cub Swanson. He called him out in the cage after the fight and again backstage. The problem is, Swanson is booked to fight Renato Moicano at UFC 227 in early August in Los Angeles.

So a matchup with Swanson may take a little longer than Amirkhani would like to come to fruition.

“I think it’s a good matchup,” he said. “I earned my shot with this fight, I think. His name has been ringing in my mind for a long time, and I think it’s time for us to fight. But I’ll let him take his fight first. Then I’ll talk to the UFC and we’ll see who’s the next victim.”

A win over someone with Swanson’s reputation certainly would be a big boost for Amirkhani, who says he’s well-known in Finland – after all, his nickname is “Mr. Finland” – but wants to be well-known beyond his home country.

“When you walk in Finland, in every corner in every state, they know who Makwan Amirkhani is. Now it’s well time for the world to know about me.”

For more from Amirkhani, check out the video above.

And for complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 130, check out the UFC Events section of the site.