{"id":552046,"date":"2026-03-20T04:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552046\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T04:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:28:15","slug":"brendan-allen-vs-edmen-shahbazyan-set-for-ufc-vegas-118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552046\/","title":{"rendered":"Brendan Allen vs Edmen Shahbazyan set for UFC Vegas 118"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 6-ranked<\/a> Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight Brendan Allen is set to return to action against unranked Edmen Shahbazyan at UFC Vegas 118 on Sat., June 6, 2026, inside the Meta Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. Eurosport was first to report the news.<\/p>\n

Yes \u2014 Allen will be defending his Top 10 ranking against an unranked opponent \u2026 after just stopping a surging contender on short notice.<\/p>\n

And no, he\u2019s not even headlining.<\/p>\n

\"VANCOUVER,<\/a><\/p>\n

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – OCTOBER 17: Brendan Allen poses on the scale during the UFC Fight Night official weigh-ins at Hyatt Regency Vancouver on October 17, 2025 in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Photo by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC)<\/p>\n

Allen (26-7) is coming off a massive win over Reinier de Ridder, finishing \u201cThe Dutch Knight\u201d on short notice at UFC Vancouver<\/a> (watch highlights<\/a>). Just three months earlier, he also defeated heated rival Marvin Vettori in front of a home crowd.<\/p>\n

Despite the momentum, \u201cAll-In\u201d now finds himself in a puzzling booking.<\/p>\n

Allen is 2-2 in his last four fights, but that stretch came after a dominant seven-fight win streak from 2022 to 2024 \u2014 a run that had him knocking on the door of title contention. He\u2019s also been angling for a fight with former champion<\/a> Dricus du Plessis, but that will have to wait.<\/p>\n

\"LAS<\/a><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – OCTOBER 03: Edmen Shahbazyan poses on the scale during the UFC 320 official weigh-ins at UFC Apex on October 03, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC)<\/p>\n

As for Shahbazyan (14-4), the 28-year-old has quietly rebuilt his career after a rough stretch that saw him go 2-6 against tough competition, including losses to Nassourdine Imavov, Anthony Hernandez (watch highlights<\/a>), and Jack Hermansson.<\/p>\n

Now, \u201cThe Golden Boy\u201d is riding a three-fight win streak and looks rejuvenated.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s coming off a first-round knockout win over Andre Muniz at UFC 320 (watch highlights<\/a>), and prior to that picked up wins over Andre Petroski and Dylan Budka (watch it<\/a>).<\/p>\n

While Shahbazyan has been out of the rankings for years, a win over Allen would catapult him right back into the Top 15 in emphatic fashion.<\/p>\n

Still\u2026 this is a strange one.<\/p>\n

Here is what UFC Vegas 118 looks like so far:<\/p>\n

Belal Muhammad v. Gabriel Bonfim
Brendan Allen vs. Edmen Shahbazyan
Bruno Silva vs. Edgar Chairez
Jeisla Chaves vs. Yuneisy Duben<\/p>\n

To checkout UFC\u2019s upcoming schedule of events click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 6-ranked Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight Brendan Allen is set to return to action against unranked Edmen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,61604,1396,179146],"class_list":["post-552046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-fight-announcements","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}