Haik Tsaturyan – MMA

Haik Tsaturyan - MMA

My name is Haik Tsaturyan and I am a professional MMA fighter.

My love for martial arts was transfered to me from my dad, he was a wrestler at a very young age. When I was only four years old, I used to watch a lot of movies about martial arts. Ever since then, I begged my parents to enroll me in Karate class, and my persistence paid off  because I was finally able to cinvince them to sign me up.

I was only 4 when I wore my first Karate gii, also known as “Kimano.” I wore it with pride and set a goal for myself to replace my white belt with a black one. I had my first fight when I was seven years old and won the fight. I remember that I love this sport so much that when I started going to school my parents told me that if I don’t do well in school then no more karate for me. I worked hard even as kid, my grades at school were straight “A”s. Most of the time my teachers would use me as a role model for all my class mates because at that young age I had excellent grades and I had a pretty good name in my neighborhood because of karate. By the age of twelve, I already had a black belt and had earned the title of Champion of Armenia four years in a row.

After moving to the U.S. at twelve years of age I understood that there are more opportunities for me here. At first, I was having a hard time here in the United States, I couldn’t speak English and I had no friends, only my immediate family. I had to stop training and concentrate on school.  At this point, my mom was against the idea of my fighting again because after one of my fights,  when I came home and she saw my blood stained Gi, my swollen eyes and noticed my broken nose, she forbade me from continuing. I stopped training for about five years and it was killing me. I knew I had to do something, so sometimes I would lie to my mom saying that I am going out with friends but instead I would go to different gyms and spar with people. One beautiful day I woke up and I decided that no matter what, I am going back to training so I told my mom that I want to start again. She replied with an angry voice just like every Armenian mom would, “If you go back to fighting, then don’t ever talk to me…” I knew she didn’t mean any of that so I went to the Main Event Gym and signed up. After training at Main Event Gym for about three months, one of my training partners: Ando Dermenjyan told me that they have a wrestling gym and that all the hyefighters train there and that I should start doing wrestling with them too. I was very excited to know that my wrestling will improve too and so set a goal that I have to start fighting professional MMA.

Since then, I train twice a day as hard as I can at the Main Event Gym and SK Golden Boys.

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