Ronda Rousey may now be in the WWE, and she also may have been blasted for her obvious lack of striking skill during her precipitous MMA downfall, but apparently, that doesn’t mean she’s giving up on the sweet science. Except for this time, she’ll be doing it in a managerial role. Yes, Ronda Rousey is […]
Ronda Rousey may now be in the WWE, and she also may have been blasted for her obvious lack of striking skill during her precipitous MMA downfall, but apparently, that doesn’t mean she’s giving up on the sweet science.
Except for this time, she’ll be doing it in a managerial role. Yes, Ronda Rousey is reportedly a boxing manager.
News came this week that Rousey had procured her first client Ferdinand Koberyan while seemingly partnering with Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Productions, who announced the signing online:
Koberyan is a 20-year-old fighter who currently resides in Rousey’s home state California after moving from his native Armenia.
Rousey has long been linked to the Armenian community, specifically in her relationship with highly criticized coach Edmond Tarverdyan, but her ties to the people hearken back to her time as an Olympic medal-winning judo player.
Rousey also discussed the signing on Instagram, congratulating Koberyan:
Scheduled to team with Olympic wrestling medalist Kurt Angle and take on WWE executives Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque in her first official pro-wrestling match at April 8’s WrestleMania 34, Rousey left the UFC after two consecutive knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
The 31-year-old women’s MMA legend recently said the chances of her returning to the UFC were very slim and were as likely as her returning to judo to make the Olympics.
Exactly what she will do in terms of being a manager for fighters is unknown, and some are speculating she’ll simply be a public face for signing fighters to Tarverdyan’s Glendale Fighting Club.
Head Movement! It looks as though Glendale Fighting Club is still up and running. Contrary to recent reports, UFC heavyweight Travis Browne is still a member too. After the UFC 207 frenzy died down, many questions still remained about coach Edmond Tarverdyan. Firstly, the polarizing coach was again the subject of massive debate regarding his
It looks as though Glendale Fighting Club is still up and running. Contrary to recent reports, UFC heavyweight Travis Browne is still a member too. After the UFC 207 frenzy died down, many questions still remained about coach Edmond Tarverdyan. Firstly, the polarizing coach was again the subject of massive debate regarding his credentials. Showing no improvement in her stand up, Ronda Rousey crumbled quickly against Amanda Nunes. Just 48 seconds in to the first round and ‘Rowdy’ had taken all she could handle.
Then came the deadline for a settlement agreement to the tune of $160K. Coach Edmond’s bankruptcy/fraud case had to be sorted by last month or the gym could be sold by the pursuing party. With Dana White recently saying Rousey is pretty much done fighting, reports about ‘Hapa’ joining a different gym circulated. Apparently those reports were inaccurate, and Browne recently came to the defense of his coach. Speaking during a podcast appearance, ‘Hapa’ confirmed coach Edmond will be in his corner against Derrick Lewis in Halifax:
“Don’t Judge Edmond”
Heading in to his February 19 showdown with ‘Black Beast,’ Browne desperately needs a win. Riding a two-fight losing skid, Browne’s fortunes have been on the downswing since joining Glendale. This is not a reflection of Tarverdyan, says Browne, who believes people are singling his coach out:
“I think it’s easy to judge from the outside. Anybody that I’ve ever had in camp, to work with me as a training partner, they are always like, ‘Edmond knows what he’s talking about.’ He has a great fight IQ and he has great coaching. It’s about the athletes going out there and performing. Every coach has lost. Every champion, with the exclusion of Jon Jones, has lost. Why didn’t the community come down on those coaches? Where was everybody then? Why are you singling him out? It isn’t fair.”
Browne Blames Himself
“Speaking for myself, I went to Edmond to work specifically on footwork and my hands. Now it was up to me, during my fights, to work on my kicks, and grappling, and stuff like that. That was just something that I, for whatever reason, wasn’t at the front of my mind. I think now after I’ve had a tough year, after a year like this, I need to sit back. I’ve developed these skills, how do I incorporate them now into like the full scope of what I’m able to do.”
“What was happening is that I go to a certain point that was pretty high in the rankings based solely off of athletic ability. Really I didn’t have any coach that was like, ‘yes, that’s my student.’ I got a lot of my coaching from a lot of my training partners. They are high-level training partners, you had Phil Davis, Brandon Vera, Jon Jones, even Andrei Arlovski, guys who were in the gym. Yes, I had coaches, they were good coaches, I’m not saying they were bad coaches, but I never really learned how to fight technically. So I felt I got to a certain spot in my career based on my athletic ability, and I wanted to learn specifics of the sport.”
“I went to Edmond and started learning specifics of the sport, but then, in my own mind, I look back now, I started to depend too much on my skill level and not use my athletic ability. So now I’m sitting here after the Werdum fight thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ I need to go back to being athletic as I’m going to be but also using the skill set that I’ve learned over the years and incorporating it all.”
At Stake
Facing a surging heavyweight prospect in Lewis, Browne will need to be on top form. At stake is possibly his UFC contract. ‘Hapa’ vs. ‘Black Beast’ is the main event of UFC Fight Night 105, and which version of Travis Browne that shows up will prove pivotal to the result.
Travis Browne has finally left Edmond Tarverdyan’s Glendale Fighting Club. Heading into his pivotal UFC 208 match-up with noted power slugger Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis, Browne has reportedly moved his training camp to Black House MMA to get a fresh start in 2017. A tweet surfaced from UFC Insiders confirming “Hapa’s” move: Travis Browne has
Travis Browne has finally left Edmond Tarverdyan’s Glendale Fighting Club.
Heading into his pivotal UFC 208 match-up with noted power slugger Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis, Browne has reportedly moved his training camp to Black House MMA to get a fresh start in 2017.
A tweet surfaced from UFC Insiders confirming “Hapa’s” move:
Travis Browne has left Edmond Taverdyan's gym and will be joining Black House pic.twitter.com/GSxUKRlGQD
That should be music to the ears of Browne’s fans, as the onetime-promising contender has dropped four out of last six bouts with victories over Brendan Schaub and Matt Mitrione, who are now retired and fighting in Bellator, respectively – and the win over Mitrione came at least partly due to a controversial eye poke.
Prior to the downward trend, Browne had notched three straight huge knockout victories, stopping John Barnett, Alistair Overeem, and Gabriel Gonzaga while earning “Knockout of the Night” bonus for each bout as a member of Greg Jackson’s respected Albuquerque camp. Obviously “Hapa’s” success took a steep downward trend when he moved to Los Angeles and began training at GFC under Edmond Tarverdyan, the coach who is undoubtedly under the most heat in all of MMA right now.
But that heat isn’t for anything he’s done to Browne’s career, as Tarverdyan has clearly been one of the main reasons for former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey’s steep decline in her two recent knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, the latter coming in a shocking and sobering 48 seconds at last December’s UFC 207.
As the collective MMA world cries out for Rousey to leave Tarverdyan and reinvent herself, this move from her boyfriend could be a bigger sign in terms of “Rowdy” finally being completely honest with herself.
That remains to be seen, however. In the meantime, Browne will be preparing at a gym more focused on the complete, overall aspects of MMA as he prepares for a must-win bout against the ultra-dangerous Lewis.
Coming out of Ronda Rousey’s devastating loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, a lot of criticism has been heaped upon her head coach. Edmond Tarverdyan. Going into the fight, there was already a lot of questioning of his coaching acumen, thanks in large part to a series of videos where Rousey’s mother (former world champion judoka AnnMaria De Mars) ripped Tarverdyan, and it only got worse. Rousey appeared to be completely ill-equipped to fight someone who could outstrike her, much less one big and strong enough to not get bullied in the cage. Worse, after Holm lit up Rousey for almost the entirety of the first round, Tarverdyan showered her with praise in the corner about how great she was doing.
Tarverdyan has finally spoken out about the criticism in an interview with ESPN. He told Brett Okamoto that”It was the biggest loss of my career. You know you won’t ever want that to happen again. So what that means is, I’ve got to work harder. Every little thing I’ve got to be honest with and make sure that we’re ready to go.” That last sentence is interesting in light of him being under investigation for tax evasion and recently having his second’s license suspended in California for lying on his application.
Then the interview gets a bit weird:
Yeah, there was a lot of criticism afterwards about adding a boxing coach. MMA is not a boxing game, but Ronda got caught, and we will be taking advice from boxing trainers. I don’t think it’s going to be a situation about adding a boxing coach, it’s about getting more thoughts from boxing trainers. I will be speaking to them and getting in the best advice. And if I feel it’s necessary we will bring them in. But besides boxing, even the wrestling, the judo, the grappling aspect of it — just approaching the fight in general, there will be a bit of things that we could add. We’re not going to sit here and change everything that we’ve done, we’ve done stuff that I think is working, it’s been great. We’re not going to have something so much different for Ronda. Have we been doing everything wrong? No, that’s not the situation. It’s a fight, Ronda got caught with a shot, and it was a little bit of a roller coaster from there.
The first thing that jumps out is that Tarverdyan IS a boxing coach who purportedly trained Vic Darchinyan at one point. This SHOULD be his wheelhouse. So why is he now saying that boxing coaches are the people who he should consult? Combine that with how h’s mostly speaking in generalities, and it reads like he’s obfuscating. He also claims that “A lot of people might think Ronda didn’t move her head when she was moving forward and she got popped with a shot. Ronda does know how to move her head. Ronda moved her head and avoided a lot of short, stocky straight shots, and she got into a beautiful clinch.” If you’ve seen the fight, then you remember that Holm’s left straight was the punch that Rousey had the most trouble with.
It’s worth reading the whole article and watching the video on the ESPN site. He talks about how Rousey has made adjustments after fights in the past, like trying to avoid giving up her back after Liz Carmouche got her in a face crank.
https://vimeo.com/117636643
Coming out of Ronda Rousey’s devastating loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, a lot of criticism has been heaped upon her head coach. Edmond Tarverdyan. Going into the fight, there was already a lot of questioning of his coaching acumen, thanks in large part to a series of videos where Rousey’s mother (former world champion judoka AnnMaria De Mars) ripped Tarverdyan, and it only got worse. Rousey appeared to be completely ill-equipped to fight someone who could outstrike her, much less one big and strong enough to not get bullied in the cage. Worse, after Holm lit up Rousey for almost the entirety of the first round, Tarverdyan showered her with praise in the corner about how great she was doing.
Tarverdyan has finally spoken out about the criticism in an interview with ESPN. He told Brett Okamoto that”It was the biggest loss of my career. You know you won’t ever want that to happen again. So what that means is, I’ve got to work harder. Every little thing I’ve got to be honest with and make sure that we’re ready to go.” That last sentence is interesting in light of him being under investigation for tax evasion and recently having his second’s license suspended in California for lying on his application.
Then the interview gets a bit weird:
Yeah, there was a lot of criticism afterwards about adding a boxing coach. MMA is not a boxing game, but Ronda got caught, and we will be taking advice from boxing trainers. I don’t think it’s going to be a situation about adding a boxing coach, it’s about getting more thoughts from boxing trainers. I will be speaking to them and getting in the best advice. And if I feel it’s necessary we will bring them in. But besides boxing, even the wrestling, the judo, the grappling aspect of it — just approaching the fight in general, there will be a bit of things that we could add. We’re not going to sit here and change everything that we’ve done, we’ve done stuff that I think is working, it’s been great. We’re not going to have something so much different for Ronda. Have we been doing everything wrong? No, that’s not the situation. It’s a fight, Ronda got caught with a shot, and it was a little bit of a roller coaster from there.
The first thing that jumps out is that Tarverdyan IS a boxing coach who purportedly trained Vic Darchinyan at one point. This SHOULD be his wheelhouse. So why is he now saying that boxing coaches are the people who he should consult? Combine that with how h’s mostly speaking in generalities, and it reads like he’s obfuscating. He also claims that “A lot of people might think Ronda didn’t move her head when she was moving forward and she got popped with a shot. Ronda does know how to move her head. Ronda moved her head and avoided a lot of short, stocky straight shots, and she got into a beautiful clinch.” If you’ve seen the fight, then you remember that Holm’s left straight was the punch that Rousey had the most trouble with.
It’s worth reading the whole article and watching the video on the ESPN site. He talks about how Rousey has made adjustments after fights in the past, like trying to avoid giving up her back after Liz Carmouche got her in a face crank.
