Manvel Gamburyan – Classless Fighter?

Maxx, a daily reader here at MMA HQ, wasn’t happy with the way Manvel Gamburyan represented the sport of MMA in his fight against Jeff Cox last weekend and sent in this post.
The match seemed to start normal with fighter introductions and then the ref clapped his hands for them to fight. Those of you familiar with MMA know that the next thing that usually happens is for the two fighters to come to the center of the cage and tap gloves before beginning to fight.
What was different about this fight was what Gamburyan did instead of touching gloves. He actually faked the initial glove touch and went for a kick instead. That is a severely classless move considering his opponent thought the glove tap was sincere, only to have to dodge a kick instead. Manny is lucky the kick didn’t land, or one could make an argument for a disqualification.
I hope the word spreads on this as it needs to be brought out into the open. Actions like this make MMA look bad, and bring the sport down a notch on a whole.
Way to go Manny. You owe your Jeff Cox and all the fans an apology for your actions.
Here is video of the fight for those who haven’t seen it.
Got something about MMA that you’d like to get off your chest? Something you love or hate? Or anything in general you want to get out there? Feel free to send in your articles to me for inclusion here at MMA HQ.















Thanks for posting that Doc. I really hate when fighters pull this kind of crap, and they should be held accountable. I’m hoping other blogs will pick it up and spread it around.
no problem Maxx. glad to do it.
as I said anytime you guys have story ideas or things you want to post to the site, feel free to send them to me. I love getting reader contributions – it makes my job easier and its good for everyone else to get another perspective on things.
as funny as it was Manny pulled a douche bag move for sure. if you wanna go down in history as a great you need to be a bit classier then that, touch gloves, look each other in the eye, and goto war and when its over shake the other guys hand and say good job. its not that hard unless your an angry dwarf i guess.
manny you are one geniune scumbag for that move you little **** ***!!
what a ***** loser
I was there live when this happened. The whole crowd booed in displeasure. Not like that cheap shot would have done much damage anyway. Manny really lost some fans for that tactic. I wasn’t much of a fan of his to begin with but now I hope they throw him in with a real oponent so he can get beat down. Most fighters have a lot of respect and discipline and there’s no need for cheap shots.
hey Doc are you gonna cover that Yamma Pit Fighting thing? ive seen a few shots of the “Yamma pit fighting surface” and it looks kinda cool, its like a round cage with a flat bottom except for the area directly against the cage its kind of a bowl edge about a foot and a half wide. apparently this “bowl” area is to prevent fighters from leaning against the cage. there putting on an 8 man tournament and two “Masters” fights.
Not sure how much I’m going to cover it yet.
The bowl is really just stolen from Chuck Norris’ World Combat League. They have the same thing, just without the cage walls on the side.
its a cool idea, but I think its really a gimic. I don’t think Yamma will be around for more then 1 or 2 shows, but I guess I should throw them a little coverage since they are putting out an MMA show.
Bob Myerowitz and Oleg Taktarov were in my home town recently for an event they hosted in Brighton Beach, here in Brooklyn. It was a match between Russian Sambo vs. Brazilian Jui-Jitsu. We got free tickets and went. Surprisingly, the BJJ fighters had a huge contingent of fans there, which was unexpected, in the large Russian community where it was held. Overall, it was a good event and they were promoting this Yamma thing all night long.
the BJJ guys won btw…but it was a night of very close matches and some shady officiating…
him and his cousin Karo both, I cant stand Karo after the “Im big and tough” treatment of Nate Diaz on the ultimate fighter
two *** clowns!
giving Judo and there people a bad name, its a shame.
I could really care less about what he did, its a non-issue to me in the long run, no worse than BJ “toying’ with Pulver for an elongated period of time and overholding a choke, or Babalu pulling his choke out stunt, sorry its fighting… linebackers “ROUGH THE PASSER” but as cheap or stupid as it looks, the punishment is on the PLAYER not on the NFL, so I disagree with the commentary, I don’t think it give MMA a bad name, but it cheapens the fighters stock; and it was already at Dollar General leve for Manny… hehe
personally Kansas, i just think its dishonorable, thats me though.. i come from the more traditional martial arts so theres all that discipline behind it. The main reason for it was so that the sensei could judge who the loyal students were and if your a douche bag, they either wouldnt train you, or possibly whip you into shape and force that discipline like the army.
One bad thing about MMA these days is, you can just sign up for class and the first day they throw some gloves on you and let you go nuts on each other. Alot of ignorant guys who think theyre tough are born that way, you can tell who those guys are in the dojo.
Some examples,
not letting go of holds after the tap, then in retaliation the other guy does the same, someone always gets hurt.
guys who try to “win” the sparring. Its not meant to be a competition of whos tougher, its to APPLY what youve learned, not to start throwing haymakers at each other.
ofcourse there are great schools out there with coaches who dont tolerate that ****.
@BV
Yeah I trained old school myself, I see the sport in “UFC” as entertainment fighting. This isn’t a Taekwondo academy or whatever art, this is televised sport, so yeah, those rules of honor would apply in a dojo, or for the football analogy in Highschool and below, but in the NFL, they sometimes break the rules, same in other televised sports. I think too much is being made of it. I think Manny is a jerk for it too.. but thats an opinion.
Regardless of whether you “think” it reflects bad on MMA or not…it most certainly does. Any current non-fan or casual fan of MMA sees that will have that image planted in the back of their mind. Keith Hackney’s vigorous pounding of Joe-sans nuts is still being talked about today…and that was 14 years ago. You don’t think there has been an accumulative affect on the NBA or MLB based on the behaviors of their players?? It is the responsibility of fans and journalists who love the SPORT of MMA to expose and condemn these behaviors before they taint an image we are working very hard to try and improve.
I see what your saying Maxx and i agree that it shouldnt happen. Like Kansas said, its also not the worst thing weve seen, even though its unsporting and dishonorable. I think the real problem is when guys hold subs after the fights over, or continue striking well after the fight is over, because they could potentially injure the other fighter.
They might feel badass for that moment, but when someone puts them in that position they might realize what a ***** move it really is.
whats the next step? beef outside the cage? like Diaz and Riggs? its supposed to be a sport, its not supposed to be personal.
It’s to be expected from a piece-of-**** Armenian!
How bout toning down there Hitler…
LOL Hitler, whats wrong with that guy?
What a douche bag!!!
lol but its a funny comment
naw patrick, it was a douche comment, but Kansas comment was funny heh
So Patrick… you think that the Armenian comment was funny, well I don’t, one of my best friends is Armenian, and I think its as bad as calling a Jew out or a black person out via racial negative…
So are you Helmet or what?
I can somewhat forgive some of the holding or hitting after the fight. You can write some of that off to adrenaline or just being over excited(not all mind you). What manny did was more than a heat of the moment reaction. He had apparently was, like Goldberg said “been waiting to do that all night”. For some reason this really really irritated me…lol. Call it a pet peeve. I hate booing more than anything, and I would have been booing at the top of my lungs at this.
Yeah it’s bothering but again maxx its not the worst thing, not to minimize it but I think DOUCHBAG’S comment about Armenians was worse than what Manny did..
Yeah the Armenian comment is deplorable for sure. I agree that What Manny did isn’t the worst thing. Mike Pyle is great example of how it can be worse.
i wonder who brought this to everyones attention,he must be a very smart and atractive man,i wonder who he could be?
Well Richard he is probably gaay so why don’t you just do what your hinting at and ask him out!?!
Broke back HQ!
no im not *** im talking about myself if i remember correctlly i brought up mannys fight first i just didnt send a email to dr j like maxx did,next time i will.But if homosexual things are cuming to ur mind kansas u should see someone about that buddy
Richard was the first to mention it on the boards. I watched it, and was equally outraged, and submitted the above article to the Doc for publishing. As to Richard’s sexual persuasion I dare not guess.
kanass……stop bein a homo….. no i aint racist…just prejudice
Yeah Patrick, once again your vast grasp on the English language befuddles me.. I don’t know how to respond to your well thought out post..
cool much love playa…. i hear the yamma pit event sucked donkey ****
I don’t see any problem in Manny’s action.
The battle was on seconds ago, and they were supposed to kill each other, not to ensure their gentlemanship.
You wake up one morning and find yourself an ugly short dumb foreigner, will you have a “class”? You go outside and most of times people think you’re a muslim though you’re their enemy, will you act like a nice guy?
I will respect Manny as he is as long as he doesn’t break rules and let his short man’s complex take over his personality.
err.. im kind of confused about your comment rainrider.. what was that about muslim enemies???? i thought we were talking about mma..
You did not understand because you think Armenians are muslim.
rainrider, i think you got issues bro.
Firstly, what did i say to make you thik that i believe armenians are muslim?
Secondly, some armenians ARE muslim, just like some are christian, buddhists, athiests, etc..
Thirdly and finally, i dont know about you, but i dont consider muslims my enemies. For all you know i could be muslim myself!
WERE HERE TO TALK ABOUT MMA NOT YOUR STUPID RACIST BELIEFS ABOUT MUSLIMS.
GET YA MIND RIGHT ADOLF!
Obviously you are out to lunch or off the reservation rainrider…
I didn’t take any offense from your comment. You obviously could not understand what I said.
Have you realized that Armenian fighters are always angry and they make agressive speeches to offend people? I know why, because they’re tired of getting mistanken for Muslim in everyday life. It’s like a Jew labeled as Nazi. Should drive you nuts.
and black men with nice cars get pulled over and mistaken for crooks all the time, but you dont see Rampage pulling dirty sh*t like that.
Exactly! Well put RJ. An Armenian a**hole is still just an a**hole.
well boy ive seen one of the fights from that Yamma pit fight show and i think thats all i need to see. the fight i watched was Ricco Rodriguez vs. Travis Wiuff, three and a half minutes worth of man love and a few punches during the other minute and a half gives us winner Travis Wiuff by unanimous decision, really? so a wrestler only has to hold you down for 5 minutes to win? come on man thats lame, i like tournaments as much as the next guy but not at the sake of killing the fights. and on a final note no one should ever complain about Mike Goldbergs sh*tty commentary any more trust me it could be worse, when Wiuff threw a superman punch and one of the announcers actually said “man i hate that jumping stuff” WHAT? jumping stuff? are you kidding me? would it have killed Bob Meyrowitz to hire someone who has watched an MMA fight since 1995? jumping stuff LOL, its called a superman punch assshole! anyways unless they make some major changes i dont see them being around much longer.
Again, he’s a smelly, piece of **** Armenian! Don’t expect ANYTHING less from THESE people! They’re all over North Hollywood and Glendale in California! That whole region needs to be doused with deodorant! **** Armenians! Can’t stand them!
says the dude with the monster truck in his av LMFAO. did you and Ma get the new double wide yet? shootin’ critters for vittles wasnt much fun on the porch of yer ol’ trailer. LOL
oh and by the way when your baggin on someone else for not being classy…. aw forget it.
have you ever wondered what GSP was thinking in there first fight? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BiqyTRJQB8
here is a video of Georges watching the fight and talking about it. ive been trying to not think about this upcoming show because the more i count the minutes the slower it seem to go but my wife reminds me daily how long we have left till we leave for MTL. lol she even has a ticker on her facebook that is keeping track to the second lol i think shes more hyped about it then i am, i really wanted to get to Montreal for the weight-ins but i cant leave till noon so thats a bummer but what ever at least ill get to the show.
DOC…post something else… so we can stop listening to these *** wads talking about racial ****… everyone is equal in the lords eyes boys!!!
I know man, its been 4 or 5 days already.
There just haven’t been any huge stories and I’ve been working on some other projects too.
YAMMA was garbage and I don’t even want to give it the time of day by posting anything.
I’ve got a book review that should be posted soon and a contest giveaway, then the UFC 83 preview and hype stuff for this week.
how many of you dudes wanna bet that gsp is gonna whoop serras ***
i’ll bet GSP whoops that asss.
i know this is a bit premature but what ever, the next season of TUF will feature light heavies and im making making my prediction now Krzysztof Soszynski will win. end of story.