Niko Price is getting a second retirement fight, and this time the UFC is the one asking. “The Hybrid” will face Leon Shahbazyan on the UFC Vegas 122 prelims this Saturday, Oct. 10, at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas, a booking Price says came straight from matchmaker Sean Shelby after his first goodbye fell flat.
That first goodbye happened at UFC Seattle earlier this year. Price surprised people during fight week by announcing he’d walk away after his bout with Michael Chiesa. The problem was that Chiesa was retiring that same night, and the broadcast gave him nearly all of the attention. Price’s exit got about as much airtime as the commercial break.
The UFC apparently noticed. Price told Home of Fight how the call went.
“They were like, ‘Would you like a proper retirement?’ And I was like, ‘Heck yeah, that sounds like fun. I’ll take another fight,’” Price said.
He added that his Seattle announcement caught Shelby off guard too, and that he had already set one condition for ever fighting again.
“It was crazy. I said the only way I would take another fight was if UFC came to me and said, ‘Here’s the fight. Do you want it?’ That’s exactly what they said, word for word, and to me, that was God speaking.”
Hard to argue with that kind of sign. Harder still to argue with the opponent. Shahbazyan’s Octagon career opened with him getting run over in a matter of seconds, according to MMA Mania, so this is not a case of the matchmakers feeding a fading veteran to some unbeaten prospect with a highlight reel and a hype video.
Price needs the friendly assignment. He sits at 16-11 and walks in on a four-fight losing streak, with first-round stoppage losses in each of his last two appearances. Across his previous eight fights he’s 2-6. His welterweight run has included nights like UFC 317 in June 2025, when he met Jacobe Smith at T-Mobile Arena, but the recent stretch has been rough by any measure.
As for whether Saturday really is the end, Price sounded settled, with one escape hatch.
“Yeah, no, I’m feeling pretty accomplished in my career,” Price said. “I’m going to end it with this one. If a golden nugget comes up, you can’t turn down a golden nugget. It’s as simple as that.”
So he’s retiring, unless somebody shows up with gold. Every fighter in history has said some version of that sentence, and about half of them meant it.
My take: this is the UFC doing a small, decent thing, and doing it with some brains. Price spent years being one of the most reliably violent action fighters on any card, the kind of guy you circled on the prelims because something was going to break. He earned a walkout where the commentators actually say his name. Booking him against a guy who once lasted seconds gives him a real shot at leaving with his hand raised instead of another early stoppage on his record. Price and Shahbazyan go Saturday on the prelims at the Apex. Watch that one live.
