UFC Fight Night 173: Brunson vs. Shahbazyan - Predictions and Picks
After four straight shows on Abu Dhabi’s ‘Fight Island’, the UFC returns to Las Vegas this weekend.
UFC Fight Night 173 might’ve lost its initial main event – Irene Aldana vs. Holly Holm – due to Aldana testing positive for COVID-19, but the promotion has come up with a pretty solid replacement.
Outside of that? It’s not the strongest card of 2020 but with exciting fighters such as Vicente Luque and Kevin Holland involved, it could turn out to be fun.
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC Fight Night 173: Brunson vs. Shahbazyan.
#1 UFC Middleweight Division: Derek Brunson vs. Edmen Shahbazyan
Whichever way you look at it, this is some perfect matchmaking from the UFC. Brunson is arguably the highest-level gatekeeper in the promotion at 185lbs, while Shahbazyan – still just 22 years old – might be the division’s best prospect.
I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t like Shahbazyan’s chances when he emerged into the UFC in late 2018. He entered into the promotion at 7-0 after a 40-second knockout on Dana White’s Contender Series, with none of his wins coming by anything but KO or TKO.
However, his striking form looked powerful but sloppy, and worryingly, his head coach was the notorious Edmond Tarverdyan. The last time we’d really seen Edmond in the UFC, he’d been getting pretty poor results from the likes of Ronda Rousey, Travis Browne and Jake Ellenberger.
But ‘Golden Boy’ made good in his UFC debut, albeit not in the way people expected. He basically outwrestled Darren Stewart for a decision, a curious choice of gameplan considering his previous fights. Sure, he gassed out badly in doing so, but the win showed that he was more than a wild striker.
Since then, though, he’s taken everyone by surprise. One-sided wins over Charles Byrd and Jack Marshman made him a man to watch, but it was his win over Brad Tavares at UFC 244 that really raised eyebrows. Shahbazyan took out the tough veteran midway through the first round, finishing him with a head kick. It was only the third time Tavares had been stopped in a decade-long UFC career that has spanned 18 fights.
Basically then, we know ‘Golden Boy’ has finishing skills in all areas. He’s only shown glimpses of his ground game, but it looks pretty solid. And on the feet, he’s got power, his technique appears to be improving, and he’s clearly got a nasty killer instinct.
What we don’t know about him is how he responds to real adversity. That’s something that Brunson will be hoping to find out this weekend.
Brunson’s UFC career has been a curious one to follow. He debuted back in 2012 after a run in StrikeForce, and his early fights were frankly awful. His lay-and-pray wrestling style earned him few fans, and it appeared that he could easily become a Middleweight version of a Jon Fitch.
That all changed in 2015. Brunson suddenly decided to change his style, preferring to use his wrestling game in a more defensive way. He found he had crushing power in his hands, and used that power to put together a run of 4 KO wins that put him into title contention.
That all ended, however, when he ran into Robert Whittaker. Brunson’s wild striking style was simply too easy for ‘The Reaper’ to counter, and after a crazy fight, the Aussie ended up winning via TKO.
Since that fight, Brunson has gone 4-3, although he ought to be 5-2 given his loss to Anderson Silva came from some terrible judging. He’s also tended to follow the same pattern – he’s knocked out his chinnier opponents, outworked his tougher ones, but has been beaten by strikers able to counter his wilder attacks.
The big question here then is whether Shahbazyan is as sharp on the counter as his when he’s on the attack.
All of Shahbazyan’s UFC wins thus far – and judging by footage on him, a lot of his earlier wins too – have come from him simply buzzsawing through his opponent. If he tries to do that to Brunson there’s every chance he wins, but there’s also every chance that he finds himself outgunned somewhat.
There’s also a chance that if ‘Golden Boy’ does come in aggressively, Brunson simply looks to outwork him down the stretch, as he did with the aggressive Ian Heinisch at UFC 241. In that fight Brunson took some shots, but was able to defend well and used his own heavy strikes as well as his wrestling to grind out a win.
Clearly then, the best route to success for Shahbazyan would be to allow Brunson to come to him, let him make mistakes and capitalise on them. And it is worth noting that while there’s no shame in losing to counter-strikers like Whittaker and Israel Adesanya, his loss to Jacare Souza – a much less noted striker – came in the same fashion.
It’s honestly a tough fight to pick, purely because we don’t know how well Shahbazyan’s chin might hold up if Brunson does crack him, but overall I’m leaning towards the young gun.
Assuming this doesn’t turn into a wild firefight – which could go either way – then I think ‘Golden Boy’ can land the bigger shots. And given Brunson’s been knocked out before, is 36 years old, and has been fighting since 2010, I’m not sure he can survive a rush from such a great finisher.
The Pick: Shahbazyan via first round KO