Azat Hovhannisyan Edges Past Eduardo Baez On Zuffa 05

There was a time, not so very long ago, when Azat Hovhannisyan appeared to be a fighter whose best performances might be behind him. Three consecutive defeats across 2022, 2023 and 2024, including an eleventh-round stoppage by Luis Nery and a pair of points losses, had suggested that the aggressive Armenian's willingness to absorb punishment while hunting the finish might finally have extracted its toll. At the Meta Apex in Las Vegas on Easter Sunday, with the additional complication of an apparent left arm issue that became visible from the opening minutes of the contest, Hovhannisyan fought through ten rounds to earn a majority decision over Mexico's Eduardo Baez in the main card opener of Zuffa Boxing 05. The judges returned scores of 97-93 and 96-94 for the Armenian, with the third scorecard registering a 95-95 draw. It was not a performance that will trouble the end-of-year highlight reels, but it was the kind of result that a fighter who has endured what Hovhannisyan has endured over the past few years requires, and it moved him to 23 wins, six defeats and seventeen stoppages.

Hovhannisyan, born in Yerevan, Armenia, and now living and training in Los Angeles under the guidance of Hall of Fame coach Freddie Roach, turned thirty-seven this past August. He made his professional debut in April 2011 and has spent the intervening fifteen years building a record that is defined less by its arithmetic and more by the sheer physical commitment with which every entry on it has been earned. He challenged Rey Vargas for the WBC super-bantamweight title in May 2018 and lost by unanimous decision, a result that established his credentials as a genuine title-level operator, yet failed to deliver the championship his work rate suggested he deserved. The years since have included a seven-fight winning streak of notable violence, six of those victories coming inside the distance, followed by the three-loss sequence that preceded his recovery win over the previously unbeaten Aidos Medet on a Zuffa Boxing preliminary card in January. That Medet fight, taken on four days' notice at a career-high weight, secured Hovhannisyan a three-fight promotional deal with Zuffa and the main card slot on Sunday evening that he made the most of despite the complications that the left arm introduced.

Baez arrived in Las Vegas with a record of 25 wins, seven defeats and two draws, a record that includes the kind of names that confirm legitimate competitive experience at the highest levels of the featherweight and super-featherweight divisions, even as it shows that those experiences have not always produced the preferred outcome. He challenged Emanuel Navarrete for the WBO featherweight title in August 2022 and was stopped in the sixth round, a result that established a ceiling without demolishing the foundation. He had lost four of his last five fights entering the Hovhannisyan contest, including a fourth-round technical knockout defeat to Yan Santana in November 2024, and he had not competed in five months. At thirty years old and with thirty-four professional contests on his record, he was a known and tested quantity at the featherweight level, technically proficient but without the kind of sustained pressure resistance that would be required to withstand Hovhannisyan's specific brand of persistent aggression, assuming the Armenian's left arm permitted the aggression to be delivered.

The left arm was a concern, presented promptly. Within the early rounds, Hovhannisyan was visibly examining the limb between exchanges, shaking it out and peering at it with the expression of a man who has discovered an unwelcome development at a rather inconvenient moment. The distraction was apparent, and its influence on the opening exchanges was tangible. Baez, technically sound and intelligent in his use of distance, landed the cleaner work through the early rounds as Hovhannisyan adjusted to whatever was troubling the arm and attempted to make the right hand do sufficient work to compensate for whatever the left was contributing less freely than intended. Baez took advantage of this, picking shots and landing with a tidiness that his record of limited stoppages might not have led one to expect from a fighter in the position of an early-round leader against "Crazy A."

The fight settled into a more competitive rhythm through the middle rounds as Hovhannisyan's adjustment progressed and his pressure began to impose itself more consistently. The right hand was his primary instrument of accumulation, landing clean shots through the middle rounds that gave the two judges who ultimately favoured him a reason to track the rounds in his direction. The sixth round produced one of the more characteristic Hovhannisyan moments, the Armenian taking a clean punch from Baez and responding with a taunt, the kind of behavioural communication that is not technically illegal but that the referee will understandably note as an invitation to escalate the exchanges. Hovhannisyan was also cautioned on multiple occasions for rabbit punches and low blows, foul work that accumulated throughout the contest and somewhat undermined the legitimacy of the pressure he applied. The ninth round contained another low shot that drew the attention of the official.

The closing rounds played to the pattern that those who have watched the Armenian across his career will recognise. Whatever the physical state of the arm, and whatever the early rounds had conceded to Baez, Hovhannisyan pressed the action through the final sessions with the commitment of a fighter who understands that the last impression left on judges before they put pen to scorecard carries disproportionate weight. The stronger finishing rounds helped consolidate the two cards in his favour, and the final bell confirmed a result that the more charitable reading of ten rounds of competitive featherweight boxing could reasonably support.

Baez, for his part, conducted himself with the technical discipline that his best performances have always displayed. He was the cleaner worker in the early rounds, controlled distance effectively, and landed accurate combinations throughout the contest, without ever being seriously hurt. That he could not ultimately persuade two of the three judges that his approach had outweighed Hovhannisyan's volume and late-round activity reflects the inherent subjectivity of close ten-round decisions as much as any fundamental inadequacy in his performance. A third judge agreed with what those inclined toward Baez's style would have argued, which is at least an acknowledgement that the contest was not the one-sided affair that two of the scorecards might imply.

Hovhannisyan's immediate future within Zuffa's featherweight structure points toward the kind of progressive matchmaking that the promotion has applied to its other acquisitions. He has two fights remaining on his contract, and at thirty-seven, the clock on his ambitions to challenge for another major championship is running rather more than it did when he last stood across from a world title holder seven years ago. What he demonstrated at the Meta Apex on Easter Sunday is that the competitive spirit has not diminished and that the Freddie Roach partnership continues to produce a fighter who is entertaining, durable and capable of winning at the level Zuffa Boxing currently provides.