Edmen Shahbazyan survives early adversity, KO’s AJ Dobson in UFC Vegas 89 feature fight

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, March 23, 2024, for UFC Vegas 89, going down live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.

Headlining the event is a women’s strawweight bout between no. 7 ranked Amanda Ribas (13-4) and former two-time UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas (11-6).

Co-headlining the event is a heavyweight bout between Karl Williams (9-1) and Justin Tafa (7-3).

Our feature fight of the evening came in the middleweight division between Edmen Shahbazyan (13-4) and AJ Dobson (7-3).

Following four-straight impressive wins to open up his UFC career, Shahbazyan had since gone 1-4 over his last five, showing intense growing pains still at just 26 years of age. Dobson on the other hand came in off a win over Tafon Nchukwi following back-to-back defeats to begin his promotional tenure.

Continue reading to see how our middleweight feature fight of the evening went down:

Official Result: Edmen Shahbazyan def. AJ Dobson via KO (punches) at 4:33 of round two

Dobson got to work with his quick hands early, landing a heavy right hand and left hook that had Shahbazyan on wobbly legs, who immediately tied up in search of a takedown. He was unable to secure it, though he’d secure an inside trip soon after once tying up with Dobson again.

This was a beautiful takedown we weren’t expecting out of Shahbazyan, but he needed it and it worked. Dobson eventually reversed the position and got on top himself, until Shahbazyan impressively worked his way back to his feet.

Shahbazyan dropped Dobson with a left hand in the middle of an exchange and followed up with some ground and pound for the first round knockout finish.

EDMEN SHAHBAZYAN TURNED THE TABLES 💥 #UFCVegas89 pic.twitter.com/s1DIrLZuIf

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 24, 2024

Edmen Shahbazyan has gotten discouraged in the past when things weren’t going his way, but tonight he overcame the adversity and stopped his opponent in under five minutes tonight at UFC Vegas 89. That was a great thing to see out of this 26 year old who seemingly still has a lot of potential.

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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