Fast facts
- Division: Welterweight (UFC)
- Record: 6-1
- Nationality: Azerbaijani (born August 1, 1995, in Baku)
- Team/gym: American Top Team, Coconut Creek, Florida (previously Stout PGH in Pittsburgh)
- Notable wins: Eric Nolan (unanimous decision, UFC Fight Night 280), Abdurakhmon Fazilov (TKO, LFA 223), Marc-Ari Lewis (TKO, LFA 211)
On the night of June 27, 2026, in Baku, the city where he was born and raised, Farman Hasanov took Eric Nolan down 17 times. Nine of those came in the first round, which is the most takedowns anyone has landed in a single UFC welterweight round. He attempted 12 in those five minutes. The 17 for the fight rank second among welterweight bouts in UFC history and fourth across every division. He won a unanimous decision in his debut, in front of his own people, by doing the one thing he has done his whole life better than almost anyone around him.
Four months later, on October 31 at UFC Vegas 123 (UFC Fight Night 292 in the record books), a cut ended all of it. Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani opened Hasanov up badly enough that the doctor waved it off in Round 3. The zero was gone, and so was the clean, simple version of his story.
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The more complicated version is the better one.
A wrestler first
Hasanov earned the title of Master of Sport in freestyle wrestling before he ever threw a punch for money. That rank carries weight in the former Soviet sporting system, and in Azerbaijan, where freestyle wrestling is something close to a civic institution, it marks a man who spent his youth on mats competing at a serious level. He did not start training MMA until 2021, which is worth sitting with for a second. He was 25 or 26 years old and starting over in a new sport.
The climb was fast. In 2022 he represented Azerbaijan as an amateur at the IMMAF European MMA Championships and came home with a silver medal. That July he turned pro at Ased Fighting Championship in Baku and stopped Emil Salimov in 47 seconds. Twenty-seven days later, on July 30, he finished Ibragim Sariev by TKO in the second round under the Iron Fist banner. Two pro fights in one month, two stoppages, and a wrestler who apparently did not need long to figure out what to do with his hands once the other man was underneath him.
Starting over again, in Pittsburgh
In 2023 he did the hard thing a lot of fighters from his part of the world talk about and fewer actually do. He moved to the United States. His first stop was Stout PGH in Pittsburgh, which is about as far from the Caspian as a young athlete can get, both in miles and in what the winters feel like. He later relocated to Florida and joined American Top Team in Coconut Creek, one of the deepest rooms in the sport, where a newcomer earns his place one round at a time against people who have already done what he wants to do.
The move came with a cost in activity. After those two fights in July 2022, Hasanov did not compete again until February 23, 2024, when he debuted at LFA 177 and beat Luke Roberts on the scorecards. Then came another long gap. He returned at LFA 211 on June 20, 2025, and stopped Marc-Ari Lewis in the second round. On November 20, 2025, at LFA 223, he put enough damage on Abdurakhmon Fazilov that the doctor ended it near the close of the first.
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That made him 5-0 with four finishes, and the UFC signed him in 2026. I’ll be honest about my bias here. Five pro wins is a thin résumé, and I’ve watched plenty of prospects get pushed as the next great thing off less than that and get exposed within a year. Hasanov never felt like a hype project to me, though, mostly because nobody was hyping him. He was a 30-year-old wrestler who had spent years in other people’s gyms on another continent, fighting rarely, waiting for the call.
The style, in one number
The Nolan fight tells you everything about how he wants to win. Seventeen takedowns is a statement of intent, and nine in a round is a level of commitment that borders on the stubborn. He chained attempts, kept coming back after Nolan stood, and turned the fight into a long argument about who controlled where it took place. Wrestlers who come to MMA late often struggle to make their pedigree matter against opponents who have spent a decade learning to sprawl and get up. Hasanov made his matter immediately.
The UFC clearly saw something marketable in that, and in him. Two days before the Lebosnoyani fight, the promotion’s X account posted that he was ready to represent his country, under the words “Fighting for Azerbaijan.” The bout opened the main card on Paramount Plus. Championship Rounds noted the matchup that week as Lebosnoyani against “undefeated Farman Hasanov,” and that word was doing a lot of the selling.
The cut
The fight against Lebosnoyani lasted into the third round, which means Hasanov kept himself in it for two full rounds and change against a man who would eventually find the shot that mattered. Then the cut opened. Championship Rounds described it as a nasty cut over his eye, while MMA Fighting put it under the eye, and whichever side of the orbital bone it sat on, it was bad enough to end the night. The doctor stopped it, and the result went down as a TKO.
MMA Fighting called Hasanov “game” in its post, and also pointed out that this was Lebosnoyani’s first stoppage in the UFC. Those two details together are the fairest way to read the loss. Hasanov did not get run over. He got caught by a cut against an opponent who had never finished anyone in the octagon before that night, and doctor stoppages for cuts are the cruelest way to lose a fight, because the fighter usually still wants to keep going.
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Where he stands
He is 6-1, 1-1 in the UFC, and 31 years old. That age matters more for him than for most, since he only started this sport in 2021 and has had just seven pro fights in more than four years. The long gaps between fights early in his career, the move to Pittsburgh, the second move to Florida, all of it cost him time he doesn’t have in large supply.
What he does have is a wrestling base that already sits in the UFC record book and a room at American Top Team that has turned plenty of raw grapplers into complete fighters. The work now is unglamorous. Tighten the defense on the feet so the cuts stop coming, keep taking people down, and fight more often than he has.
The last time anyone saw him in the octagon, he was walking out of the cage in Las Vegas with blood around his eye. The time before that, he was in Baku, and he had taken a man down 17 times.
