AnnMaria De Mars, mother to UFC superstar Ronda Rousey, was heavily critical of her daughters coach Edmond Tarverdyan prior to her devastating knockout loss to Holly Holm back in November, and while she fell silent for a few months after that she’s now put him on blast once again.
“I predicted it in advance,” De Mars told Submission Radio when asked about Rousey’s defeat. “Ronda trained with an idiot. She trained with an idiot and a fraud. I would be shocked to find out that guy has any record at all. As far as I know, I saw him fight once and he fought somebody that had a record of like 6-20 and won on a split decision. The guy is a fraud. Ronda has a lot of talent. She came into that gym with a very strong background of training at the Olympic level and it carried her a long way.
“She needs to get away from some egomaniac fraud and be herself. Ronda as herself can beat anybody on the planet. I’m sad about it but you become an adult and make decisions. Sometimes you make mistakes and hopefully you learn from them.”
While De Mars has been Tarverdyan’s leading critic, others have questioned his coaching following Rousey’s last fight, with UFC color commentators Joe Rogan and Kenny Florian being among many who felt that his advice to her inbetween rounds was woefully wide of the mark.
Meanwhile, further red flags have been raised regarding Tarverdyan due to the fact that it emerged prior to UFC 193 that he had filed for bankruptcy and claiming to be “not employed”, while in the first month of 2016 the California State Athletic Commission revoked his corner license for falsifying information on official documents regarding a past arrest.
“I hope [Tarverdyan] loses his license or goes to jail because either of those is a possibility,” De Mars says.
Really though, at the heart of all this is that De Mars wants the best for her daughter, and as a former world judo champion herself who taught Rousey in her formative years she feels she’s well qualified to have an opinion on the matter.
“If she changes gyms she could go dramatically further,” De Mars stated.
“I think if she changes gyms she has an outstanding chance of winning,” she added later, before ending with a word of caution. “If she doesn’t? As a statistician, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you do the same things with the same people you can expect the same result.”
For the record, Tarverdyan has since responded to De Mars latest rant, and as he did last year he’s resisted the temptation to fire back.
“It’s just her opinion,” Tarverdyan told TMZ Sports. “I’m just here to train Ronda and it really doesn’t matter. Ronda knows who I am. I am her trainer and that’s really about it.”
