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Once you meet Shahbazyan, that confidence is almost endearing. He’s as fast with his smile as he is his fight-ending finishes and is as personable as he is lethal inside the Octagon. Piling up first-round finishes is certainly a fast way to get noticed, and so Shahbazyan hasn’t really needed to do as much work on the mic to start beef with opponents. That said, though, he’s not one to back down from some verbal warfare.
Shahbazyan recalls his matchup with Marshman for this particular reason. He said the Welshman was calling Shahbazyan a “cocky kid, or something like that,” so even though the two hadn’t met beforehand, there was plenty to say once they were face-to-face.
“At staredowns, he was telling me, ‘Oh, you think I’m scared of you?’ This and that,” Shahbazyan said. “I was like, ‘Oh, now that you’ve said it, now I think you are scared of me because you said it.’ He was trying to get into my head. I don’t know … It didn’t end up good for him.”
“The Golden Boy” secured the first submission win of his professional career in that fight, and while he is as friendly a person as any on the roster, he does carry the sense of invincibility that comes with an unblemished record.
“With a good finish, everybody is going to pay attention to you, but if my opponent starts talking s***, I’ll talk s***,” Shahbazyan said. “It’s not going to change the way I’m going to beat him. It’s business as usual. I’m going to go in there to dominate every time. Him talking s*** is not going to affect my performance at all. I’ll be talking s*** back to him.”