In terms of an uphill climb, it could not get much steeper for
Fabian
Edwards.
The Team Renegade standout will confront former
Bellator
MMA,
Dream and
Strikeforce
champion
Gegard
Mousasi in the
Bellator 296 headliner on Friday at the Accor Arena in Paris.
Edwards enters the cage on a modest two-fight winning streak. He
last competed at Bellator 287, where he took a unanimous decision
from
Charlie
Ward in their three-round pairing on Oct. 29. Mousasi,
meanwhile, has won 12 of his past 14 bouts. He last fought on June
24, when he surrendered his middleweight crown to the unbeaten
Johnny
Eblen in a five-round unanimous decision at Bellator 282.
As Mousasi and Edwards move ever closer to their forthcoming clash
at 185 pounds, a look at some of the numbers that have accompanied
them to this point:
37: Years of age for Mousasi, who was born in Tehran, Iran, on Aug.
1, 1985.
12: Mousasi wins by submission, accounting for 25% of his career
total (49). His methods of choice: six rear-naked chokes, two
triangle chokes, one armbar, one arm-triangle choke, one straight
armbar and one guillotine choke. Mousasi owns 28 other wins by
knockout or technical knockout (57%) and nine more by decision
(18%).
10: Seconds needed for Mousasi to bury
Tsuyoshi
Kurihara with a knee strike and follow-up punches at Deep 22
Impact on Dec. 2, 2005. More than 17 years later, it remains his
fastest finish to date.
64: Rounds completed by Mousasi as a professional mixed martial
artist. He has gone the distance on 15 different occasions and
carries a 9-4-2 record in those bouts.
179: Combined victories between the eight opponents—Eblen,
Rafael
Lovato Jr.,
Uriah Hall,
Ronaldo
Souza,
Lyoto
Machida,
Muhammed
Lawal,
Akihiro Gono
and
Petras
Markevicius—who have beaten Mousasi. They sport a cumulative
.692 winning percentage at 179-76-13.
30: Years of age for Edwards, who was born on March 24, 1993 in
Kingston, Jamaica.
4: Edwards victories by knockout or technical knockout, accounting
for 36% of his career total. His complete list of victims:
Lyoto
Machida,
Falco Neto
Lopes,
Claudio
Conti and Rafael Cejrowski. Edwards holds three other victories
by submission (28%) and four more by decision (36%).
721: Days since Edwards last tasted defeat. He wound up on the
wrong side of a unanimous decision against
Austin
Vanderford at Bellator 259 on May 21, 2021 and rebounded by
besting Machida and Ward in back-to-back outings.
2: Organizations for which Edwards has plied his mixed martial arts
trade. He has gone 7-2 in Bellator and 4-0 in the British
Association of Mixed Martial Arts.
.862: Cumulative winning percentage between the two
opponents—Vanderford and
Costello
van Steenis—who have defeated Edwards. They boast a combined
record of 25-4.