Karo Parisyan talks comeback, hints at friction between Ronda Rousey and old gym

Karo Parisyan started fighting professionally when he was 14. Four months away from his 32nd birthday, he’s still waging a comeback.

“Thirty-one years old, no one can say at my age they’ve been fighting more than half their life, and I have been,” he recently told MMAjunkie Radio. “It’s f–king disturbing, but I’ve been fighting for such a long time, and I’m very happy that I’m able to do this and I have so much experience under my belt, and I’m still in my prime. That’s the crazy thing about this. I’m only 31 years old, and I can do another five years of insane fights.

“I know for another five years, god willing, I can still dump fools on their heads and take championships.

Parisyan has ascended to the highest levels of MMA and fallen while fighting personal demons. He has admitted to an addiction to painkillers, and battled depression and anxiety as he tried to win a title in the UFC. But earlier this month, the once top-ranked welterweight and would-be title challenger delivered a result no one could dispute: a knockout.

In a non-tournament fight at Bellator 116 on April 16, Parisyan (23-10 MMA, 1-1 BMMA) earned his first such career win, over American Kickboxing Academy’s Ron Keslar (11-6 MMA, 2-2 BMMA). It was his first outing since a knockout loss to Bellator tournament winner Rick Hawn in April 2013.

Parisyan is now 4-4 since leaving the UFC, and he doesn’t plan to throw in the towel any time soon. He has one fight remaining on his Bellator contract and said he’ll talk to promotion head Bjorn Rebney to see what’s in store for him. While he isn’t opposed to fighting in a tournament, he is looking for the biggest opportunities available.

“At the end of the day, it’s about money for me,” he said. “I’m not a money-hungry guy, but at the end of the day, how much money did you make? I don’t fight for anybody’s pretty hair; I fight for money. It’s my living. We’ll see. I don’t know where I stand, but it will eventually come around.”

After years of bouncing from camp to camp, Parisyan said he’s returned home to Hayastan Academy in North Hollywood, Calif. The gym was instrumental in teaching him the skills he used to popularize the use of judo in MMA, which, of course, is now seeing a huge resurgence with Olympic judoka and UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey.

Parisyan never was able to win a UFC title, injuring himself prior to a fight with now-retired champ Matt Hughes at UFC 56. But he’s not shy about about claiming his place in MMA history as the bridge between the grappling art and the still-young sport.

“A lot of guys you’ve seen fighting, I’ve taught those guys throws,” he said. “I’ve worked out with a bunch of them. They always ask me, ‘Teach me throw.’ It’s not that I teach them a throw. I can take any fool off the street and teach him a throw in five minutes. But it takes years to master a move. It takes years to understand the technique. More important than anything, you have to feel that move and the timing of it. “

Parisyan said Rousey’s UFC success can directly be attributed to her work at Hayastan, where she trained after winning bronze at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

“Why is Ronda frickin good? Why is Ronda an animal, this little white girl? Because guys would not come train with us,” he said. “They didn’t want to come train with us, because they thought we were animals and we would hurt them. Ronda was this little white girl that would get on the mat and cry.

“I would have to yell at her and say, ‘You better suck your lip back in right now and get on the f–king mat. We’re not dealing with your crap, Ronda.’ And she would suck it in. I would say a small joke and maybe smile, and boom, she was on the mat again, and she was f–king dudes up. That’s why she’s so good, because she was training with animals like us. And she’s naturally strong. Ronda’s legit.”

With that said, Parisyan’s name is largely left out of Rousey’s journey into MMA. Meanwhile, his cousin, UFC bantamweight Manny Gamburyan, takes a more central role in her fighting life, working with her alongside Edmund Tarverdyan at Glendale Fighting Club, which resides a short drive from Hayastan.

“That’s all good,” Parisyan said. “No animosity toward them. Good for Manny, good for Ronda, because Manny’s always there with her at the trainings and stuff, and Ronda might be on her period and she might take her underwear off and stuff, so Manny helps her out with that stuff, too, like with the tampons and everything else.”

He jokingly added, “I’m being a dick to them.”

While Parisyan said Gamburyan recently returned to Hayastan and has found success inside the octagon, he gave the impression the two gyms aren’t necessarily friendly.

“You can’t even compare that gym to our gym, bro,” he said. “We’re an established MMA gym and a judo gym for over 20 years. [Glendale Fighting Club] is a collage gym that became an MMA gym somehow because Roman Mitichyan, one of our guys, one of my best training partners and friends, was taking judo over there, which is part of mixed martial arts, and they bring Edmund, (who) eats up Ronda’s brain and he does what he has to do and brings Ronda in. I don’t want to say eats up her brain, but kind of gets her (thinking), ‘You’ve got to this standup.’ Ronda likes Armenians; she’s been around us all her life. She joined the [GFC], and it’s helping her out, I guess. I don’t know. “

Parisyan added that Rousey’s former teammates aren’t thrilled with Rousey’s choice to train full-time at the gym in Glendale.

“Our guys felt a little hurt from her that she’s been a little disrespectful; she thinks she’s big,” he said. “This is what they say and they think, not me – I could care less. It’s all good between me and her, but the guys, most of the guys, even (trainer) Gokor (Chivichyan), they’re like, all of a sudden she doesn’t train with us. She’ll come by once a year and she has to get dragged there from her mom, like, ‘Oh, just come back and say hi to the guys.’ Now she’s with Glendale. I don’t know what the f–k she does there. She does standup. She does mitt work a little bit, and she might be sparring standup.

“That’s what happened to Manny. Manny went there, these guys said, ‘You don’t need grappling, you don’t need judo, you’re already a master at that, so come train with us more than you train with Hayastan.’ And Manny’s like, OK. Manny went there and trained, and he forgot that he’s a grappler and a judo guy. And he forgot, where a kickboxer like Dennis Siver … can take his back and ground and pound him, taking a grappler’s back. That’s not supposed to happen. Manny fell down a lot, man. Now, he’s back with us and he trains more with us than with them and he sees, ‘What am I doing?’ You can’t forget what your strength is.”

Parisyan said he saw Rousey earlier this month and gave her a hug and kiss. While he said his relationship with the UFC champ is strong, he wishes it was the same with her former academy.

“That’s a very sad thing,” he said. “I hope the guys who come across [the interview], it’s sad. All of us should be one team. There’s not too many Armenians in this world, bro. I think everybody should reunite. There’s a lot of ego, so much ego, so much jealousy that goes on, and that’s the sad part. It’s really f–king sad.”

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