After Training (left to right- Hassan S., Kevin Dowell, Sean Amerson, Peter Cunningham, Shawn Yacoubian, Dr. Nelson Hamilton & Everton Davis)

For those of you who missed the IMTO title fight, I lost by unanimous decision. When I had arrived back in the U.S. from Thailand I had 2 1/2 weeks left of training so I stepped the level up a few notches and found out my calculations were off by a whole week. I had over trained to the point of exhaustion, which I never encountered before. It was a learning experience.

My opponent took full advantage and kept me in his range of fire throughout most of the fight; I give Ra’Karma Young credit for being a smart fighter unlike some other fighters I know. He was a very good opponent, it was just unfortunate I was mentally burnt out, otherwise it would have been a great show.

I will have a rematch either this year or early 2004 to prove my point that I will win; my trainers Peter Cunningham, Rick O’ Kane and Nokweed will all work together to supervise the training sessions to ensure my diet is on track and my mind is away from mental strain, that way over training will not be a factor again. I thank everyone along with my sponsors who came down to see the fight and promise to perform better my next event.

My plans for this month are to take a short break and work on a few things in the gym as well as designing a logo for my name and website and a new trading card. I will suprise you all hopefully in the next month or so.

My next fight, (once I get confirmation), will be 5 rounds of Muay Thai Kickboxing against Josh “The Avenger” Bendell LIVE on PAY-PER-VIEW from Victorville, CA. This will be a Dennis Warner promotion, the same as the first fight I had at the beginning of this year. When I get confirmation for this fight I will then set up my rematch with Ra’Karma.

For those of you, who like hip-hop and R&B, check out a (she’s Armenian) friend’s site www.surabian.com for upcoming shows; as I understand she was one of the finalists in the miss hip-hop 2003 contest. Her new CD is in the final stages of development.

I’d like to congratulate the students from HYEKATCHDO for flying to Armenia last month to test for their Black Belts, you can log on to their site and check out cool photos in their gallery www.hyekatchdo.com

My condolences go out to my trainer Rick O’ Kane for his mother who recently passed away from cancer, a few days after my fight in Fresno.

Shawn

After Training (left to right - Stephen Quadros, Shawn Yacoubian & Peter Cunningham) 9-8-03