A few weeks ago Brendan Allen was out training with Khamzat and doing interviews with a fat lip and what looked like a dislocated jaw talking about “it's an honor to be here” which I imagine it is, but then he went on to say things like “i just got off couch for this camp” meaning that a few weeks ago he was doing absolutely nothing until he got the call to train with Khamzat. And thanks to Ronin MMA for putting that all together because I don't have enough time to watch every fighter interview that hits my feed. Now I don't actually care about the comment he made about getting off the couch, what I do care about though is he genuinely looked beat the hell up and I have no idea if he has properly rested or healed up because he went right from helping Khamzat to helping himself. The reason that is important here because he will need to grind in this fight. There's no way he can hang in the striking with Edmen so he will have to wrestle hard from bell to bell and just because he's getting takedowns, doesn't mean he's safe. Edmen was taken down by both Andre Muniz and Andre Petroski and he dropped both of them. I am going to pick Brendan and I am going to assume he is ready to go. This is normally where I would say “but this is Vegas and the judges may not like the wrestling” but Brendan doesn't just camp out and should work enough on top do inflict actual damage.
Brendan Allen
Brendan Allen is a BJJ black belt with solid low kicks, solid takedowns and solid striking overall. When Brendan is on, he looks fantastic. He has incredible cardio, nice striking and nice grappling. He is a better hammer than he is a nail, but he has a lot of high level experience and some dog in him. He is coming off the win over RDR where he lost the first round and then got him to quit on the stool.
Edmen Shahbazyan
Edmen Shahbazyan is a very good striker who is well rounded and has impressive kicks. He can be taken down though because he is long and he plants his feet before throwing. His takedown defense is listed at at 66% and if he is taken down he can end up in trouble because he doesn't scramble well enough to get back up or threaten enough to get a submission. He has solid offensive wrestling though with almost 2 takedowns per fight. He is coming off the KO win over Andre Muniz
