Coming off a majority decision loss to Emmanuel Sanchez at Bellator 170 to start off his 2017, featherweight veteran Georgi Karakhanyan was looking to rebound in his next bout this past August against Daniel Pineda at Bellator 182.
For his part, Karakhanyan was able to do just that, picking up a second round TKO of Pineda, and in the process earning a victory in what some saw as a must-win fight.
“I feel like my wrestling wasn’t the best, but overall I got the finish and got the win, and that’s all that matters to me,” Karakhanyan told MMAWeekly.com. “A lot of people look at it different ways. But to me, the loss to Sanchez wasn’t too big to me. Yeah he did win on paper, but he wasn’t convincingly the winner.
“I didn’t feel like I lost – I feel like I just didn’t perform – and that’s where the difference is. To me losing is being knocked out or submitted. You’ve got to beat me up all three rounds to where I’m bloodied up. It was a loss, but it was good to come out with a victory in the Pineda fight.”
The win over Pineda was not only Karakhanyan’s third in his last four fights, but also his third finish in those wins, which is exactly what he needs to stay competitive in the featherweight division.
“I have to put on such a good performance that whoever is fighting after me has to go out there and try to out-perform me,” said Karakhanyan. “It’s about performance, performance, performance; I’ve got to have the performance to beat.”
Karakhanyan (27-7-1) will look to kick off his year on a positive note when he takes on Henry Corrales (14-3) in a main card 145-pound bout at Bellator 192 on Saturday in Los Angeles.
“I kind of knew we were going to cross paths,” Karakhanyan said. “I feel like (Corrales is) a guy who comes forward. I come forward. It’s going to be fireworks, and may the best man win. I’m going to go hard. I know he’s going to go hard. The main thing for me is that I leave everything in there.”
For Karakhanyan moving forward, he just wants to enjoy each moment that comes and not worry too much about the far ahead future.
“I take it fight by fight, day by day,” said Karakhanyan. “I’ll think about the fight maybe hours before the fight, but as of right now I just enjoy everything. Before I was thinking about the fight one or two months before and I couldn’t sleep, but now I just go day by day.
“You learn how to deal with the losses, learn how to deal with failures, learn how to deal with injuries. That’s what makes a good fighter. A lot of fighters lose or get injured and just shut down, but for me the way I look at anything is it’s just part of my career.”
