Valuetainment - May 02, 2026


ā€œKnocked Me Out In 20 Secondsā€ - Arman Tsarukyan REVEALS His WILD MMA Origins

Hosted by
Patrick Bet-David
Mentioned
Tiger Muay Thai Habib
ļ¼‚MILLIONS Of Americans VOTED For Thisļ¼‚ - Fauci Fixer CHARGED Over COVID Conspiracy ā€œA Staged Eventļ¼Ÿā€ - Cole Allen WHCD Footage Sparks Debate

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

188.39

Word count

2,224

Sentence count

156

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Your story, I've heard it from a lot of different people, you know,
00:00:03.400 the story of you used to be a hockey player,
00:00:06.300 and then all of a sudden you got into fighting.
00:00:07.620 So maybe tell me a little bit about your upbringing.
00:00:09.740 Yeah, I was born in Georgia.
00:00:12.740 We moved to Russia for the good life, you know.
00:00:17.180 And then I went to karate.
00:00:18.900 I didn't like, I like karate, but it was too far.
00:00:22.180 And then I started wrestling because it's close to my home.
00:00:25.480 I was starting wrestling, and I could wrestle so good when I was a kid.
00:00:31.140 But my coach always tells me, you've got to cut weight because you've got to be lighter.
00:00:36.020 And I was hitting this sport because of cut weight.
00:00:39.740 But nowadays, if someone asks me as a kid, a kid shouldn't cut weight
00:00:43.720 because it's the worst thing ever for the kid.
00:00:46.840 And I could not eat three or four days as an eight-year-old kid.
00:00:52.340 Can you imagine what's the stress?
00:00:53.700 At eight years old?
00:00:54.340 So you started training very early.
00:00:56.200 Yeah, I started six.
00:00:57.440 I started training six.
00:00:58.860 And from six to nine or ten, I was beating everybody on the wrestling.
00:01:04.160 And when I was ten, I was playing for myself.
00:01:08.720 From six or seven years, I wrestled professionally already,
00:01:12.600 but I played hockey in my backyard with my friends
00:01:16.500 because all my classmates were hockey players.
00:01:20.740 I'm from Habarovsk. 0.99
00:01:22.100 It's like a cold place in Russia.
00:01:24.540 It's like north, north, like the coldest place in Russia. 1.00
00:01:28.180 Not an Armenian community? 1.00
00:01:29.620 No, no, no.
00:01:30.920 Not a lot of Armenian, only Russian people.
00:01:33.260 So they play all day hockey in the wintertime.
00:01:37.660 And my friends were their hockey players.
00:01:39.960 So I was playing with them.
00:01:41.160 And then when I was 9 or 10, one of the coaches see how I'm playing
00:01:45.460 in the backyard hockey.
00:01:47.000 And they said, you got something special.
00:01:49.400 do you want to come and play
00:01:52.580 with professional? I said how
00:01:54.040 they start when they were 5-6
00:01:56.400 you gotta start earlier when you're in
00:01:58.560 hockey and I started 10
00:02:00.460 and
00:02:02.000 even I couldn't pick it up
00:02:04.440 until 17 so I was playing professional
00:02:06.580 from 10 to 17 hockey
00:02:08.220 You were playing professional hockey from 10 to 17?
00:02:10.200 Yeah I wanted to go NHL
00:02:11.660 so my dad even was saying like
00:02:13.860 whatever you want I send you Canada
00:02:16.560 USA just if you want
00:02:18.500 to play in the NHL, so you
00:02:20.580 gotta go there. I said
00:02:21.560 I'd like to be here, but I was
00:02:24.620 a kid. I didn't know what I should do, so
00:02:26.240 if I was smart,
00:02:28.460 I should tell to my dad to send me to
00:02:30.380 the U.S. or to Canada
00:02:32.520 to play here. Were you that good that you
00:02:34.540 think you could have made it in the NHL?
00:02:37.480 I was good.
00:02:38.480 I was good, and
00:02:39.520 my goal was hockey, and then
00:02:42.140 when I was 17, I understood
00:02:44.360 I cannot be a good hockey player,
00:02:47.040 and
00:02:47.280 And they said, okay, it's done.
00:02:50.360 I'm going to work with my dad.
00:02:52.620 And I was working three months with my dad and said, no, this is not my thing.
00:02:57.440 I like to be in the sport because it's easier for me.
00:03:00.300 You wake up, you know, your time, you train one or two times a day.
00:03:03.720 You chill all day.
00:03:05.060 You're, like, clean, you know, eat clean food.
00:03:07.800 But when you're in construction business, you wake up at 6, you don't have a schedule.
00:03:13.060 you just drive everywhere like talk to people like help your dad you know they don't care about
00:03:18.640 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
00:03:26.480 back to sport and I said my dad can I go to grappling school and he said yeah do it and
00:03:32.360 I went to grappling and I could do so good because I trained when I was from six to nine
00:03:37.800 wrestling and like i could pick it up so fast and grappling was just starting in russia so from nine
00:03:44.180 to 17 you didn't do any grappling or nothing nothing so only six to nine wrestle then nine
00:03:48.800 to 17 hockey and then you come back to grappling in eight yeah so in one year i i was a russian
00:03:54.260 champion so yeah it was like everybody was surprised how i made it and like and grappling
00:04:00.900 for me was boring and i i see like someone is fighting and i said okay i got i asked my dad
00:04:06.640 Can I do one fight in MMA? 1.00
00:04:08.280 He said, you're stupid. 1.00
00:04:09.280 They're going to break your head. 1.00
00:04:11.000 Why you need that?
00:04:11.980 I said, just one fight.
00:04:13.640 I like when people go to the cage, you know, with music.
00:04:18.520 And I watched once when I was, like, 17.
00:04:21.920 And I said, I want to do this once in my life.
00:04:24.480 Who'd you watch?
00:04:25.020 What fight did you watch at 17?
00:04:26.440 It's a Dagestani guy.
00:04:28.000 He was walking to the cage with good music.
00:04:33.460 You know, I said, it made me so excited.
00:04:36.380 and I said, I want to do this in my life.
00:04:38.580 Just because the walkout?
00:04:39.760 Yeah, walkout.
00:04:40.740 Yeah, I don't know why the walkout
00:04:42.240 and people crowd watch you and I don't know.
00:04:45.540 I like it so much and I said, my dad, can I do once?
00:04:49.620 And he said, just once.
00:04:50.960 And my mom was crying all day.
00:04:52.580 Don't do that because someone's going to break your head 1.00
00:04:55.820 so you're going to be stupid all your life. 1.00
00:04:57.720 Now, have you been a fighter? 1.00
00:04:58.880 Were you a fighter or mainly wrestling?
00:05:00.460 Would you get into a lot of fistfights or no?
00:05:02.600 No, no, no.
00:05:03.220 I didn't have experience.
00:05:04.100 I was like a grappler, and then I wanted to transition to MMA just for one fight.
00:05:11.720 So, and thank God I won my first one, and then they offered me right away.
00:05:17.640 The second one was the guy who has 11 or 10 fights, professional.
00:05:22.500 And I didn't have a coach who said, no, don't do that.
00:05:26.020 I had, like, I have, like, a strong heart.
00:05:30.620 You know, I don't care who I'm going to fight.
00:05:32.800 I said if he wants to fight me I'll go because I'm I was young no experience nobody tell me you
00:05:38.420 shouldn't do that you gotta box first get experience and then you you can go to fight
00:05:45.320 like this but I said okay I don't care like I just go and take and wrestle him and I went there in
00:05:51.300 15 or 20 seconds he knocked me out my dad said what are you doing like I told you don't go there
00:05:57.380 It's not your thing.
00:05:59.080 And I was so mad.
00:06:00.640 And I said, okay, give me one year.
00:06:04.220 And can you send me to Thailand?
00:06:08.180 So I flew to Thailand.
00:06:09.900 I stayed there one year.
00:06:11.100 And I came back, beat him, this guy that he knocked me out.
00:06:15.140 What did you do in Thailand for one year?
00:06:16.680 I was training.
00:06:17.660 I was coming back for competition to Russia and then back to Thailand.
00:06:23.460 How intense was the training in Thailand?
00:06:25.280 It was hard.
00:06:25.840 It was hard.
00:06:26.600 So hard.
00:06:27.380 I didn't know how to train.
00:06:28.600 I was training all day.
00:06:29.560 I felt like a professional fighter.
00:06:31.860 They go to the gym in the morning and then come in the evening back.
00:06:36.020 So I was in the gym all day.
00:06:37.420 I didn't know, like, I got to go there, do one training,
00:06:41.880 and then rest, and then evening.
00:06:44.020 I went there from 9 to 11.
00:06:46.440 It was jiu-jitsu.
00:06:48.000 From 12 to 2, it was MMA.
00:06:50.940 And then from 5 to 6, it was sparring,
00:06:53.320 and I was doing, like, all that trainings.
00:06:56.420 Every day?
00:06:56.900 Every day, yeah. Only Sunday day off.
00:07:01.600 Who told you about that place?
00:07:03.900 I was watching on YouTube. I didn't know even where that place.
00:07:08.280 I just know it was in the island Phuket.
00:07:11.320 And I landed there. I was asking everybody, where's Tiger Muay Thai?
00:07:14.720 And nobody knew that.
00:07:17.480 And then one of the taxi driver, he drove me there.
00:07:22.600 It was like 30 minutes from the airport.
00:07:24.540 Did you go by yourself or did you go with a group?
00:07:26.080 No, alone, alone.
00:07:26.940 I was there alone, alone.
00:07:28.520 By yourself, you're saying you're going to Thailand
00:07:29.940 based on a video you saw on YouTube.
00:07:31.540 Yeah, nobody, nobody, yeah.
00:07:34.300 Yeah.
00:07:34.820 So you're training there, and then you're,
00:07:37.140 now at the same time, are you coming back and forth to Russia or no?
00:07:40.040 Yeah, I was going back to Russia, beat somebody, and then come back.
00:07:43.300 And then in one year, exactly the same day,
00:07:45.320 I beat the guy who knocked me out.
00:07:47.620 I chocked him out.
00:07:48.580 And then my dad said, okay, you beat him, that's it.
00:07:51.960 But I was winning for one year, five fights.
00:07:55.440 I was a Russian champion MMA master of sport of MMA and like I asked the one guy I want to retire
00:08:04.640 because my dad doesn't I was 19 and he said you shouldn't do that you have like a good potential
00:08:10.500 like you can be in UFC and don't do that I said what is UFC what are you talking about I'm just
00:08:17.260 fighting yeah and then I flew to Korea I beat the guy in Korea and then one of my managers said
00:08:24.440 like keep doing because you're seven and one uh you can be like a good mma fire and you can you
00:08:31.520 can be in ufc so and then i will and then i want to start beating everybody and i was like
00:08:37.360 30 30 win streak 30 win streak and they sent me to in ufc for two weeks before so at what point
00:08:45.320 did dana know who you were do you have an idea when the ufc found out who this kid is armand
00:08:50.780 that's beating everybody up yeah because the they signed me before it was the second event in
00:09:01.600 Russia you see you've seen Russia and they were looking for someone from there so and they got
00:09:08.900 me there and they it was short notice before two weeks they they told me before fight but still
00:09:14.380 you know I said I gotta take this chance because you never know what's what gonna be tomorrow
00:09:19.380 or maybe they're never going to call me again. 0.83
00:09:22.080 And is this an Islam fight? 0.97
00:09:23.380 Yeah, it's an Islam fight. 0.94
00:09:24.120 I went there, and my manager said, it's Islam. 1.00
00:09:26.760 I said, I don't care who is Islam and who is Habib. 0.99
00:09:29.460 I don't care.
00:09:30.660 I want to be in UFC.
00:09:32.960 I knew they give you a contract not for one fight.
00:09:35.820 They give you a contract for four fights.
00:09:37.880 So if you go there, perform very well.
00:09:40.140 And I knew I could beat him.
00:09:41.700 I don't know why.
00:09:42.780 In my mind, I was so confident.
00:09:46.240 Is that you or someone's telling you this?
00:09:48.220 No, just me.
00:09:49.240 You.
00:09:49.540 The confidence is you.
00:09:50.860 Yeah, just me.
00:09:51.580 Where did the confidence come from?
00:09:54.260 I think from my blood, I don't know,
00:09:55.980 because where I was born, hard lifestyle, you know,
00:10:00.960 my parents, they came from nothing, probably from that,
00:10:06.340 that you've got to take risks and do what you've got to do, you know.
00:10:13.360 Your dad seems like an interesting guy.
00:10:14.920 Is he very tough?
00:10:15.920 Is he a tough guy?
00:10:18.160 he's he's tough he can work 24 7 and never complain and uh when i was growing up i was
00:10:26.120 watching what he's doing you know and like he he he never buys for himself nothing he just
00:10:32.380 think about us for our for our future and uh for example if you ask him like i want to buy this
00:10:39.440 car or this yeah he's saying buy it but for him he never gonna buy for him like a car or simple
00:10:45.540 guy yeah i mean when he was like 40 something i said like that why you you don't want to buy a car
00:10:52.000 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
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