Ronda Rousey has her mother, Dr. AnnMaria DeMars, to thank for a number of things, her Judo background among them. Now Ronda has her mom to thank for another round of the drama that surrounds her career regularly. For some reason, Dr. DeMars absolutely lambasted Rousey’s longtime coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, when asked about him in an interview with LatiNation. Here are some of the choicest bits.
“I think Edmond is a terrible coach, and I will say it publicly. I think he’s a terrible coach, I think he hit the lottery when Ronda walked in there. She was winning before she ever met him… She was one of the top athletes in the world when she walked in there, and he wouldn’t even give her the time of day for months. Somebody like that is a terrible coach.”
“I would caution anybody from going [to Tarverdyan’s gym], and I think it’s bad that he uses her to lure people in. And the reason I tell everybody — and I told Ronda, I’m not going to be quiet about this any more — he’s a bad person and people should not go there.”
DeMars also added that she believes Rousey has stayed in the gym out of “superstition” because she continues to win with Tarverdyan as her coach. Tarverdyan openly admits he wasn’t interested in training Rousey until he saw her fight for the first time, and the discussion of how appropriate that attitude was is best left to people more knowledgeable about fight gym politics than I, but it’s fair to say that DeMars took the slight personally. She didn’t give any other reason for thinking Tarverdyan is a bad person.
Meanwhile, Rousey has evolved as a fighter under Tarverdyan’s tutelage to the point where she’s even impressed Mike Tyson with her punching. So far, Tarverdyan (who hasn’t responded to DeMars’ comments) probably wins this argument simply because Rousey is still in his gym.
