Coach Edmond Tarverdyan is one of the most well-known coaches in MMA, helping lead Ronda Rousey to both the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Title and the Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Title.
However, the coach has also been on the end of his fair share of criticism from those in different MMA circles and now he is firing back.
“I did this all my life,” Tarverdyan said on The MMA Hour. “I was a professional fighter myself. What I did, what I could do, the abilities I have, I know and my fighters know. People what they think or what they say, it doesn’t bug me. Sometimes just a little bit (from) the coaches. If the coaches don’t understand and they make a stupid comment after they were kissing my ass when Ronda was on top, that’s a little bit hurtful. Its OK, we move on and it’s life. What I have to do is come out with another amazing, special fighter to prove what I could do. That’s all I could do.”
Tarverdyan had been working along with Rousey’s husband in Travis Browne, who hasn’t earned a victory in almost two years. Edmond was not in Browne's corner for his last fight.
The coach has been hearing it about how he worked with Browne, but he says that he knows how to speak and work with his fighter.
“I know how to speak to my fighter,” Tarverdyan said. “Isn’t that true? You should know how to speak to your fighter. What do you think? Don’t you think I’ve trained Travis Browne and I don’t know how to speak to Travis Browne? You do and I don’t? I train that guy every day and I don’t know how to encourage him or not encourage him or give him advice with a proper way, with a proper tone, with a proper voice?”
In the last two years, the coach’s biggest pupils in Rousey and Browne are a combined 0-6-0, while Browne was the last of those fighters to get a win and that came in January 2016.
