Every time Melsik Baghdasaryan goes to earn a paycheck, someone is trying to knock him out.
Or his opponent might be looking to apply a submission hold that is either so painful or puts him on the edge of consciousness that he concedes the fight.
For Baghdasaryan, it’s just another day at the Octagon. But if you want to strike fear in the UFC featherweight’s heart, book him on a flight.
“I’m really scared traveling, like flying. I mean really, really scared,” Baghdasaryan said in a recent interview. “I’m not even going like flying to Vegas.”
Which makes his featherweight fight this weekend even more startling, as “The Gun” from Glendale fights for the first time in 15 months when he takes on Joshua Culibao on the UFC 284 preliminary card in, of all places, Perth Australia.
“I don’t know how I did this,” Baghdasaryan said with a laugh of the 21-hour flight to Down Under. “But yeah, even now I think about going back, thinking like, ‘Man, how I should go back?’”
Baghdasaryan, 31, has seemingly endured worse of late. He was forced to withdraw from a fight in April because of an MCL sprain suffered while training jiu-jitsu. Six months later, he was sidelined for another bout after breaking his hand, which came as a surprise to everyone.
“I swear, I didn’t feel like even any pain. All the coaches did not see anything in our sparring time, even my opponent didn’t feel anything,” said the native of Yerevan, Armenia. “I just finished the sparring and then take off the gloves, I’m like, ‘Oh my god. My hand is hurt.’ I went to Cedars-Sinai and they said it’s a broken metacarpal bone. The middle finger bone.”
Consecutive injuries were challenging for an athlete who has been competing in some form of martial arts or combat sports since he was 6. Baghdasaryan has done karate, kickboxing, muay thai, boxing and finally settled in with MMA.
Edmond Tarverdyan, who trains Baghdasaryan (7-1) at Glendale Fighting Club, said the…
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