With a lot of desire and the proper tools, one could probably extract some formidable poetry from the name of the event that served as the stage for Georgi Karakhanyan’s MMA debut. The event name: “BOOYAA.” Caps were not inserted by this author for emphasis.
The second verse of the ballad practically writes itself: That night’s opponent outweighed Karakhanyan by at least 50 pounds.
“I was training one day, and someone came over and said, ‘Who wants to fight in King of the Cage?’” Karakhanyan recalled. I said yes. Five minutes before the fight, they came in and said, ‘You’re fighting a guy who’s 208.’”
Karakhanyan went out there anyway, and in the second round he sank in a guillotine choke. Fight over. BOOYAA.
That was 2006. Seven years, more than 25 contests and 16 finishes later, Karakhanyan owns a reputation as one of the nastiest, most entirely fearless headhunters in the featherweight division. After an undistinguished run in Bellator, he now also guards an eight-fight winning streak, including four wins by submission and one by knockout.
The streak and its contents earned him a chance to become the first featherweight champion in the fledgling World Series of Fighting promotion, and he’ll fight for the distinction on Saturday at WSOF 7 against Lance Palmer.
Palmer brings a heavy wrestling game and an unblemished record to his WSOF debut on Saturday. For Karakhanyan, meanwhile, a grinder might as well be just another funny word for a sandwich. Only eight of his pro contests have gone the distance, while 13 ended in the opening stanza.
“More of a fighter who pushes forward,” Karakhanyan said. “I want to make it exciting. Flying knee, flying kicks. It’s not going to be boring.”
Despite the striking terms and an avowed admiration for K-1, the 28-year-old Karakhanyan (22-3-1) is mainly a jiu-jitsu fighter. He generally uses his submission game, or the threat of same, to earn a finish. But Palmer, a four-time All-American while wrestling for Ohio State University who took the fight on short notice after original opponent Rick Glenn pulled out for personal reasons, could smother that attack.
Karakhanyan is facing down the problem like it’s a fighter who outweighs him by 50 pounds.
“I know Lance (Palmer) comes from a good wrestling background…But at the end of the day it’s an MMA fight,” he said in a recent media conference call for WSOF 7. “I’m looking to go out there and finish. I like to fight, and I don’t mind getting punched in the face. And I don’t mind punching him back.”
The Beaten Path is a series highlighting the top prospects in MMA. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Scott Harris is a writer for Bleacher Report MMA. For more on MMA prospects and the kind of general blithering you just can’t get anywhere else on the Internet, follow Scott on Twitter.
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