[autotag]Edmen Shahbazyan[/autotag] will look to keep climbing the ladder at 185 pounds.
Shahbazyan is set to meet [autotag]Derek Brunson[/autotag] 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.
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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.
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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
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