Edmen Shahbazyan vs. Derek Brunson booked for UFC 248
Edmen Shahbazyan will look to keep climbing the ladder at 185 pounds.
Shahbazyan is set to meet Derek Brunson at UFC 248. MMA Junkie confirmed the matchup with a person with knowledge of the booking after an initial report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
UFC 248 takes place March 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
The undefeated Shahbazyan (11-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) has run through competition at middleweight. He continued to shine in his toughest test to date, scoring a first-round head-kick finish of Brad Tavares last November. The 22-year-old has aspirations of becoming the youngest UFC champion in history and has finished 10 of his 11 professional fights.
After dropping two straight, Brunson (20-7 MMA, 11-5 UFC) has turned things around by picking up back-to-back wins over Elias Theodorou and most recently Ian Heinisch at UFC 241 in August.
With the addition, the UFC 248 lineup now includes:
- Champ Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero – for middleweight title
- Champ Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk – for women’s strawweight title
- Derek Brunson vs. Edmen Shahbazyan
- Danaa Batgerel vs. Guido Cannetti
- Polyana Viana vs. Emily Whitmire
- Li Jingliang vs. Neil Magny
- Beneil Dariush vs. Drakkar Klose
- Sean O’Malley vs. Jose Quinonez
- Max Griffin vs. Alex Oliveira
- Saparbek Safarov vs. Rodolfo Vieira
- Austin Hubbard vs. Mark Madsen
