Welcome to the new breed of MMA fighters – young men and women who have been fine-tuning their strikes since they were children, ripping off armbars for over half of their lives. Fighters who have known they were going to be fighters far before their peers knew what they’d do with their life.

Edmen Shahbazyan may only be 21 years old, but the #13 ranked middleweight contender has been training for over half of his life. Like many others, it started with traditional training, but began to evolve quickly.

I started training at 10 years old, Shahbazyan told The Top Turtle MMA Podcast. It was with karate. I slowly started combining everything together.

Although a traditional style was where he got his start, it was success in one of the styles that he added that brought him his career revelation. Just a couple years after beginning his martial arts journey, Shahbazyan won a grappling tournament and knew right away that this was it.

After my first competition that I won in grappling, my brother and I both fell in love with the sport, he said. We’re like ‘we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this forever.’

And if the early start and the early success was not enough, Shahbazyan also received plenty of help from one of the sport’s biggest names. Even as a young child, MMA superstar Ronda Rousey was one of Shahbazyan’s key influences.

When I was younger, she would always show us things when she was training and help us improve our ground game, Shahbazyan recalled. We would spar together. She would work with me on a lot of things. She helped us a lot.

That help came in more than just the physical sense. Shahbazyan notes how Rousey helped to show him the mental side of the same as well, providing him with an example of how to handle daily training.

Most of what she said or helped we with would be special advice, he said. She always brought such positive energy when she was in the room. Everything she does is incredible.

Shahbazyan looks to keep his positive energy and positive momentum going as he heads into a bout with Brad Tavares this weekend at UFC 244. That bout will air on the ESPN 2 portion of the preliminary card.

Author Daniel Vreeland is a co-founder of the Top Turtle Podcast, and a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu at New England Submission Fighting in Amherst, Massachusetts.