STAKES ARE HIGH FOR DIAZ AND GAMBURYAN
By Dave Meltzer
Los Angeles Times, CA
June 18 2007
The Ultimate Fighter 5 tournament championship and a nine-fight UFC
contract are the reward for winning their fight on Saturday.
On August 21, 2004, 21-year-old Karo Parisyan beat 21-year-old Nick
Diaz via split decision on a UFC show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Both received $6,000 for their efforts. Today, the two are among the
biggest MMA stars in the country.
When Parisyan’s training partner since childhood, and second cousin,
Manny Gamburyan, faces Diaz’s training partner since childhood and
brother, Nate, on June 23 at The Pearl in Las Vegas, the stakes will
be a whole lot higher: the Ultimate Fighter 5 tournament championship
and a nine-fight UFC contract, plus other sponsorship prizes thrown in.
Gamburyan, 26, began training with Parisyan when he was 10 and Parisyan
was 9. Both were immigrants from Armenia and started age-group judo
competition at a young age. Gamburyan was national champion in his
age group at the age of 13, when he competed at 88 pounds, and was
a top-level teenager until going all the way to the Junior World
Championships in 2000. Both started MMA training at the same time
under famed judo master and pro wrestling TV personality Gene LeBell.
Nate Diaz, 21, Nick’s brother, grew up in Stockton and shares his
brothers’ hot temper and all-around game, with his strength in
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu taught under Cesar Gracie, combined with good
technical boxing. Their match takes place on a show airing live on
Spike TV, headlined by the show’s two coaches, B.J. Penn vs. Jens
Pulver. Besides the money and the contract, also at stake is a
potential fast ride to stardom. An interesting twist is that on the
final episode of the Ultimate Fighter reality show, that aired Thursday
night, Parisyan, who hasn’t gotten along with Nick Diaz since their
fight, on the set as a guest, nearly got into a fight with Nate Diaz.
The previous winners of The Ultimate Fighter tournaments have become
unique fighters in the sport, huge stars to most fans, and hated
among the hardcore fans who believe the show gave them a shortcut to
stardom. Season one winner Forrest Griffin is one of the five most
popular fighters in the country, although he desperately needs a
win in his June 16 fight in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with Hector
Ramirez to keep from a career tailspin after two losses last year.
Diego Sanchez, the other season one winner, has become one of the top
170-pound fighters in UFC, although is also coming off a loss. For
season two, Rashad Evans is unbeaten, and faces his toughest test to
date on July 7 in Sacramento against Tito Ortiz. The other winner,
Joe Stevenson is currently a top contender at lightweight. Season three
winner Michael Bisping remains unbeaten, and is the company’s biggest
drawing card in the United Kingdom. The other winner, Kendall Grove,
is one of the more popular fighters, but hasn’t been tested against
top-level competition. For season four, Travis Lutter won and earned
a title shot at Anderson Silva, but he lost the fight, and worse,
failed to make weight beforehand. The other winner, Matt Serra,
shocked the world by winning the welterweight title from Georges
St. Pierre on April 7 in Houston.
It’s an intriguing match, because Gamburyan neither wanted to be on the
show, and, at 5-3 1/2, as the smallest of the 16-fighters in the cast,
was dismissed by many, including UFC President Dana White, as being a
contender, because of his lack of reach seemingly would make him too
easy of a target standing. But what wasn’t counted on was that nobody
could keep him from taking them down and he was difficult to reverse
position on, and was aggressive while on top . Diaz is tall and lean,
at 6-0 and able to cut to the 155-pound weight limit.
In addition, during the six weeks of filming of the show during January
and February, the two were training partners on Jens Pulver’s team.
"We trained together every day, sometimes twice a day," said Gamburyan,
who said he got along with Diaz on the show, but neither wanted to
speak to the other after they ended up in the finals because each
has a feeling that they need to dislike their opponent.
"We know what each other is good at. We know what each other isn’t
as good at."
Gamburyan is 8-2, plus two more wins in the tournament that don’t count
on his record, coming off a shoulder injury that kept him sidelined
for a year. While he actually beat Joe Lauzon to earn a spot in the
finals back in February, he wasn’t allowed to talk about it until it
aired on television on Thursday night.
He said that was the hardest thing he ever had to do, as friends and
training partners were prodding him for what happened. He said at his
gym, one of his friends saw him back in February when the show ended,
looked at him and seemed to figure it out.
"He looked at my knuckles and could see I had just been in a fight,"
said Gamburyan. "He then looked at my face and could see I didn’t have
any damage. So he hugged me and said, congratulations on getting to
the finals and told everyone in the gym."
Gamburyan never clued anyone in, but joked how in his gym, everyone
seemed to figure he was in the finals, but everyone also thought they
had figured he was facing Lauzon, the preshow favorite to win it all.
On Thursday afternoon, he noted he was counting the hours before
he could finally talk about his match, and take credit for knocking
Lauzon out of contention with a 30-27 decision win.
Gamburyan didn’t want to be on the show in the first place, nor
would he ever do it again, saying the six weeks without television,
radio, his girlfriend, music and seeing the same people every day,
drove him crazy.
"Even if they offered me $100,000, I’d never do it again."
He was first contacted late last year when UFC matchmaker Joe Silva
called him up and offered him a match on the Dec. 30 show. Silva
then called him back and said they were going to do a lightweight
tournament on the next Ultimate Fighter and he thought it would be
a great opportunity for him. Gamburyan told Silva he wasn’t interested.
Silva called him back and told him, "I want you to do it." He told him
that if he still turned it down, he’d get him a fight on a PPV show
but said he was passing up a golden opportunity that could springboard
his career a lot faster than some preliminary wins on PPV events would.
The one person who, to a degree, had to eat crow on Gamburyan was
White, who talked several times during the season that he felt
Gamburyan was too small for the top level guys on the show. White
eventually conceded Gamburyan had proven him wrong after beating
Lauzon in the semifinals.
But Gamburyan conceded as well the show was a great thing for him,
particularly when it comes to training and diet. Gamburyan packed
about 174 pounds on his frame before the show, and said it would kill
himself to cut to 160 for judo competition. But by training harder
and cutting out all junk food, he spent the entire six weeks on the
show at 155 pounds and was just about the only guy not having to cut
weight to fight. He’s now 160 without any cutting and makes 155 with
ease. He said if the opportunity was there, he’d like to cut to 145.
But for now, that isn’t happening since the lightest weight class
in UFC is 155. He also has a score to settle with UFC’s current
lightweight champ, Sean Sherk, who beat him via split decision six
years ago when both were starting out.
"I don’t diet," he said. "I eat what I want, but I don’t eat bad. No
sweet stuff, no pizza, hamburgers, or cokes. I haven’t partied in
six months. After June 23rd, I have to take a break."
Gamburyan credits his judo background for his balance, his grip
strength and ability to throw people. He says he trained harder
than anyone on the show. His strengths are his aggression, his power
and his conditioning. Diaz is taller, with ridiculously more reach,
more boxing skills, and is excellent with submissions on the ground.
Gamburyan concedes Diaz the advantage standing up from a technical
standpoint, but said he hits harder and has knockout power. It’s hard
to ascertain a conditioning edge, because both men fight as a torrid
pace and were constantly outlasting opponents during the show.
Regarding the main event, between the two coaches of the show, Pulver
vs. Penn, Gamburyan doesn’t see it as the one-sided win for Penn that
oddsmakers and almost everyone is predicting.
"I never rolled with B.J.," he said. "But Jens is no slouch. He’s
hard to take down. I hope B.J. trains hard. If B.J. stands with him,
it won’t be a good night for him. I’d say the odds are 70-30 in Jens’
favor in a stand-up fight, but on the ground, the odds go to 80-20
for B.J."
Notes: June 22 in San Jose at the HP Pavilion is a Showtime PPV
headlined by Frank Shamrock vs. Phil Baroni, promoted as the biggest
grudge match of the year, complete with interviews right out of 1970s
pro wrestling.
Dave Meltzer is the creator and author of the Wrestling Observer
Newsletter, a leading publication covering pro wrestling and MMA. For
more information:
www.wrestlingobserver.com