āKnocked Me Out In 20 Secondsā - Arman Tsarukyan REVEALS His WILD MMA Origins
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Toxicity
6
sentences flagged
Hate speech
8
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, I talk to a guy who used to be a professional hockey player, and then all of a sudden he got into MMA. He talks about how he went from playing hockey to MMA, and how he got started in MMA.
Transcript
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Your story, I've heard it from a lot of different people, you know,
00:00:06.300
and then all of a sudden you got into fighting.
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So maybe tell me a little bit about your upbringing.
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We moved to Russia for the good life, you know.
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I didn't like, I like karate, but it was too far.
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And then I started wrestling because it's close to my home.
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I was starting wrestling, and I could wrestle so good when I was a kid.
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But my coach always tells me, you've got to cut weight because you've got to be lighter.
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And I was hitting this sport because of cut weight.
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But nowadays, if someone asks me as a kid, a kid shouldn't cut weight
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And I could not eat three or four days as an eight-year-old kid.
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And from six to nine or ten, I was beating everybody on the wrestling.
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From six or seven years, I wrestled professionally already,
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but I played hockey in my backyard with my friends
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It's like north, north, like the coldest place in Russia.
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And then when I was 9 or 10, one of the coaches see how I'm playing
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You were playing professional hockey from 10 to 17?
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And I was working three months with my dad and said, no, this is not my thing.
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I like to be in the sport because it's easier for me.
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You wake up, you know, your time, you train one or two times a day.
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But when you're in construction business, you wake up at 6, you don't have a schedule.
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you just drive everywhere like talk to people like help your dad you know they don't care about
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their body they just work all day and like it's a it's not the best job and I said no I want to go
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back to sport and I said my dad can I go to grappling school and he said yeah do it and
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I went to grappling and I could do so good because I trained when I was from six to nine
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wrestling and like i could pick it up so fast and grappling was just starting in russia so from nine
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to 17 you didn't do any grappling or nothing nothing so only six to nine wrestle then nine
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to 17 hockey and then you come back to grappling in eight yeah so in one year i i was a russian
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champion so yeah it was like everybody was surprised how i made it and like and grappling
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for me was boring and i i see like someone is fighting and i said okay i got i asked my dad
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I like when people go to the cage, you know, with music.
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I like it so much and I said, my dad, can I do once?
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Don't do that because someone's going to break your head
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so you're going to be stupid all your life.
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I was like a grappler, and then I wanted to transition to MMA just for one fight.
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So, and thank God I won my first one, and then they offered me right away.
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The second one was the guy who has 11 or 10 fights, professional.
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And I didn't have a coach who said, no, don't do that.
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I said if he wants to fight me I'll go because I'm I was young no experience nobody tell me you
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shouldn't do that you gotta box first get experience and then you you can go to fight
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like this but I said okay I don't care like I just go and take and wrestle him and I went there in
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15 or 20 seconds he knocked me out my dad said what are you doing like I told you don't go there
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And I came back, beat him, this guy that he knocked me out.
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I was coming back for competition to Russia and then back to Thailand.
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They go to the gym in the morning and then come in the evening back.
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I didn't know, like, I got to go there, do one training,
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I was watching on YouTube. I didn't know even where that place.
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And I landed there. I was asking everybody, where's Tiger Muay Thai?
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And then one of the taxi driver, he drove me there.
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Did you go by yourself or did you go with a group?
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By yourself, you're saying you're going to Thailand
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now at the same time, are you coming back and forth to Russia or no?
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Yeah, I was going back to Russia, beat somebody, and then come back.
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And then my dad said, okay, you beat him, that's it.
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I was a Russian champion MMA master of sport of MMA and like I asked the one guy I want to retire
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because my dad doesn't I was 19 and he said you shouldn't do that you have like a good potential
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like you can be in UFC and don't do that I said what is UFC what are you talking about I'm just
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fighting yeah and then I flew to Korea I beat the guy in Korea and then one of my managers said
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like keep doing because you're seven and one uh you can be like a good mma fire and you can you
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can be in ufc so and then i will and then i want to start beating everybody and i was like
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30 30 win streak 30 win streak and they sent me to in ufc for two weeks before so at what point
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did dana know who you were do you have an idea when the ufc found out who this kid is armand
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that's beating everybody up yeah because the they signed me before it was the second event in
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Russia you see you've seen Russia and they were looking for someone from there so and they got
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me there and they it was short notice before two weeks they they told me before fight but still
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you know I said I gotta take this chance because you never know what's what gonna be tomorrow
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or maybe they're never going to call me again.
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I went there, and my manager said, it's Islam.
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I said, I don't care who is Islam and who is Habib.
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I knew they give you a contract not for one fight.
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because where I was born, hard lifestyle, you know,
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my parents, they came from nothing, probably from that,
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that you've got to take risks and do what you've got to do, you know.
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he's he's tough he can work 24 7 and never complain and uh when i was growing up i was
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watching what he's doing you know and like he he he never buys for himself nothing he just
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think about us for our for our future and uh for example if you ask him like i want to buy this
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car or this yeah he's saying buy it but for him he never gonna buy for him like a car or simple
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guy yeah i mean when he was like 40 something i said like that why you you don't want to buy a car
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he said my time is left when i wanted to to have a cars when i was 25 23 24 uh that moment moment i
00:11:00.780
didn't have money but now i don't i don't need that but i want you to enjoy it because i didn't
00:11:06.300
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