Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Oct 12 2004
Boxer killed in mob dispute
Police seek man who fired shots in park
By Jason Kandel,
Staff Writer
A professional boxer who aspired to be the Armenian “Rocky” was
fatally shot by other members of an organized crime ring in a dispute
over a credit-card scheme, officials said Monday.
Arsen Aivazian, 30, of North Hollywood was killed about 9 p.m.
Saturday at Valley Plaza Park, where members of a Russian-Armenian
organized crime syndicate had gathered to settle a dispute over a
fraud ring, authorities said.
“It was an argument over criminal activities within the group,” LAPD
Detective Mike Coffey said. “Credit card, gas schemes. That’s what it
was over.”
Coffey said the men argued loudly in Armenian before Aivazian — a
professional welterweight — threw a punch at one of them. That man
then pulled a gun and shot Aivazian three times in the chest before
the group fled in at least three vehicles.
On Sunday, police located one of the getaway vehicles, which had been
ditched in the 6400 block of Farmdale Avenue. The unidentified owner
was questioned and released.
Aivazian’s family members in Fort Worth, Texas, said they were
devastated by the news. They had nicknamed Aivazian “Rocky” because
of his love for boxing.
“This is a big loss,” said his brother, Andranik Aivazian, 31, who
was contacted by phone. “He was my little brother. We’ve never been
apart.”
Aivazian emigrated with his family from Yerevan, Armenia, to
Czechoslovakia, then to the United States. They settled in Fort
Worth, where Aivazian got his professional boxing license in 1997.
He trained with two-time world champion bantamweight boxer Paulie
Ayala and Fort Worth trainer Vincent Reyes. Locally, he trained at
the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.
“He always put on a good fight,” Reyes said. “He looked just like
Rocky. He had the physique and everything. He had his sense of
taste.”
While he was boxing he always had side jobs — waiting tables,
selling phone books, washing cars, “doing whatever he could to get
his hands on money,” Reyes said. But he added, “I can’t see him in
any organized crime or anything.”