Edmen Shahbazyan is back in Los Angeles this Saturday, and the UFC matchup that matters most to him is a homecoming. He is scheduled to face Brunno Ferreira in a middleweight bout on the UFC 331 prelims at Crypto.com Arena, a building Shahbazyan called the old Staples Center and a bucket-list spot.
For Shahbazyan, the fight lands in the city where his friends and family are, making the return feel personal as much as professional. He said he has watched the Lakers at the arena and watched UFC there, calling it historical and different in feel, the kind of place he wanted on his own schedule once he knew the card was there.
The timing also gives the bout extra weight. Shahbazyan, 16-6, has not fought on home turf since April 2018, when he needed only 30 seconds to stop Daniel McWilliams at California Xtreme Fighting 12 in Burbank for his sixth pro win. Since then, his path has taken him through a surge to 11-0, a 4-0 start in the UFC, a head-kick knockout of Brad Tavares in November 2019, and then losses to Derek Brunson in August 2020 and Jack Hermansson in May 2021.
That stretch helps explain why this return feels different now. Shahbazyan was once ranked No. 2 in 's 2020 list of the top MMA fighters younger than 25, but after the setbacks against Brunson and Hermansson, his team sent him north to work on wrestling with Daniel Cormier and his team in San Jose. He later moved back to Los Angeles after nearly five years in Las Vegas, and Saturday gives him a chance to turn that homecoming into something more than a sentimental visit.
Ferreira brings his own pressure into the cage. Known as The Hulk, he is 15-4, has gone 6-4 in the UFC in less than three years and has finished five of those victories, but he also enters on a 0-2 skid this year after a TKO loss to Gregory Rodrigues in March and a unanimous decision defeat to Ikram Aliskerov in June. Shahbazyan called him a wild, explosive fighter who comes in swinging and comes for a fight, but said his own skills are higher and that staying disciplined, sharp on defense and clean down the middle should be enough to put Ferreira away.
The bout also fits into a larger return of the UFC to downtown Los Angeles for the first time since 2018, after cards at Honda Center in Anaheim and the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome in Inglewood. For Shahbazyan, though, the bigger storyline is simpler than the venue map: a Glendale native who once trained under Ronda Rousey gets to walk into Crypto.com Arena with his family nearby, on a card that places a home-city fight exactly where he wanted it.
What comes next is straightforward. On Saturday, Shahbazyan and Brunno Ferreira will open their UFC 331 chapter in the prelims, and the result will tell whether the return home is just a reunion or the start of another run.
