Leading a Local Fighting Surge

These are busy days for Edmond Tarverdyan.

His cell phone never stops ringing.

His Glendale Fighting Club has professional boxers on the rise and mixed-martial artists making their Ultimate Fighting Championship debuts.

Three hundred students train at his gym and business is booming.

But he has press conferences, his own training and his own fights. And, of course, a cell phone that never stops ringing.

He tries to take 30 minutes away on a hot Glendale morning, but the calls persist and his gym is alive with training and comings and goings.

“He’s really busy, to be honest, I think he’s one of the busiest guys in Glendale,” says George Bastrmajyan, a manager and trainer at the Fighting Club, who’s also a co-promoter with Tarverdyan for their Lights Out Promotions. “But he’s been doing this since he was 16 — I think it comes second nature for him.”

Tarverdyan, just 25, is a trainer and a teacher, a proprietor and a promoter, a businessman and a family man.

“He’s done a lot for a 25-year old,” Bastrmajyan says.

Tarverdyan, a Glendale High graduate, began training in martial arts at 7 under the tutelage of Ken Arutyunyan in Glendale, learning karate, Wushu and kung fu.

At 16, he began training in muay thai — Thailand‘s national sport, which is a form of kickboxing that allows knee and elbow strikes.

“I just gave it a try and started liking it,” Tarverdyan says.

It was at 16 that Tarverdyan began teaching in Glendale.

Eventually, a professional fighting career — most successful in the muay thai world — was put on the back burner.

Tarverdyan gave up fighting for two-and-a-half years, he moved the Glendale Fighting Club to its current location on Brand Blvd., he immersed himself in training his students, he got married and he purchased a house.

“Tons of stuff,” was going on he recalls.

But for the last few weeks, Tarverdyan has been a fighter. He has returned.

With the World Boxing Council hosting the biggest muay thai event in United States history on Saturday, Tarverdyan was asked to continue his comeback tour on the pay-per-view event. Leading into it, he was 3-0 during the comeback, with two wins coming via knockout and his last, on April 20, via decision.

“I told him, ’You need to take care of yourself,’” says Silver M’bous, one of Tarverdyan‘s trainers and an instructor at the Fighting Club.

Taking care of himself meant taking care of what he missed most.

During weekends, as Tarverdyan cornered his students at competitions and events, he realized just how much he missed being inside the ropes competing.

“Every week we’re busy with the shows,” says Tarverdyan, a welterweight fighter. “Every week I had that rush that I should be competing.

“I missed it a lot.”

And M’bous wasn’t the only one urging him back.

“I told him to stop putting your fighting aside,” Bastrmajyan says.

The timing of it all seemed perfect, as well — in more ways than one.

Led by the UFC’s recent popularity, combat sports in general are garnering more attention than ever. Tarverdyan also happens to be in his fighting prime.

“He’s a little bit better, he has more experience,” says M’bous of whether the layoff has hindered Tarverdyan. “Twenty-five is the prime time [for a fighter].”

Some sacrifices had to be made, though.

“A little bit,” says Tarverdyan of getting overwhelmed. “I have to take some time off teaching. It’s not just the physical, it’s the mental. It’s a lot of work mentally.”

It comes at a time in which the Glendale Fighting Club is more popular than ever. On Aug. 25, Fighting Club trainer Alberto Crane made his UFC debut on the pay-per-view UFC 74: Respect in Las Vegas.

Another gym trainer, Roman Mitichyan, is one of 16 selections for the UFC’s “The Ultimate Fighter” show on Spike TV, which begins airing on Sept. 19. And then there’s the aforementioned 300 or so students.

“The gym, right now, is really doing well,” Tarverdyan says. “In two years, I guarantee you we’re gonna have some crazy, badass fighters.”

Now, it’s teaching and training his students that Tarverdyan misses most.

“I actually get more nervous when they’re fighting,” he says.

But it seems the future is now for Tarverdyan the fighter and the sky is the limit.

Over the years, he’s trained in tae kwon do, shoot boxing, boxing and all the aforementioned martial arts he began training in some 18 years ago. He’s fought and trained across the globe, building up a 41-4 record in stand-up fighting according to him, and an 18-2 muay thai record.

That’s after Saturday, when he defeated Ben Yelle for the WBC International welterweight title in what Bastrmajyan called a, “fight that’s going to determine a lot about the future.”

Tarverdyan says, at least once, he’d liked to fight under mixed-martial arts rules.

Before that, though, he’s been in contact with the high-profile Japanese kickboxing company, K-1, and hopes to fight on a January card. He’s also in position for a possible WBC muay thai world title fight.

“He’s one of the most gifted people I’ve ever seen in my life,” Bastrmajyan says. “He can do anything he wants.”

All the while, his gym is making as much noise in the fight world as he is.

“Within the last six months, things went from pretty calm to pretty hectic,” Bastrmajyan says.

But for now, Tarverdyan the fighter is back at full force.

“He’s got the ability,” M’bous says. “He’s got all the ability.”

And he’s ready to show it.