I arrived in Las Vegas on September 9 and had my last training session before the fight on the 11th. The weigh-ins went great, both my opponent and I weighed in at 143 lbs to fight for the IKKC light welterweight Young Guns title.
I would like to thank all my sponsors who have had made it possible for me to prepare for this fight.

Honda Only Auto Dismantling www.hondaonly.net
Autobahn Paint & Body
Precision Chiropractic Center
Arzni Mineral Water www.arzni.com
Thai Boxing Gear www.twinsgear.com
The Noodle House www.noodle-house.com
Somatic Nutrition www.somaticnutrition.com.

For those of you who missed it I was a guest on the Armenian Channel, www.amga.tv , it went very well. The show was on September 5th at 8 p.m. and replayed the following 2 days at 2 p.m. The show was hosted by Armen Hagopyan, the founder of Silver Star Belt Company www.championshipbelt.com. Myself and my trainer Peter Cunningham, the promoter Dennis Warner www.kickbox.com , and WCK’s announcer Chris Gregory www.voiceoverking.com were the guests of the show sponsored by Arzni Mineral water www.arzni.com.

The night of the fight was electrifying ……. I had been training for this one for a few months now. I was originally going to fight on the K-1 show www.k-1usa.net back on April 30th when I tore my calf muscle during training, then I was scheduled to fight the next K-1 show August 7th; that fell through because we were in the middle of negotiations of the fight when Cung El www.cungle.com got hurt in training and Japan replaced my fight with a heavyweight bout in case there was an injury during the tournament. I then called Dennis Warner, the WCK promoter, who then had told me about the fight on Sept. 11 for the Young Guns title with the use of full muay thai rules. I jumped to the proposal and continued training for this event with my coaching team Peter Cunningham, Rick O’ Kane, Nokweed Sriampai and Jimmy Beilowitz.
The strength training by my sponsors at Somatic Nutrition twice a week with Jimmy Beilowitz had gotten me in excellent shape. The tricks and techniques from Peter Cunningham were implanted within my reflexes. The lateral movements along with the Dutch style kicking were well practiced with Rick O’ Kane. The nonstop neck wrestling and knee attacks were perfected working with Nokweed Sriampai. I felt like I was in the best shape I have ever been in. With my injuries healing at 100% I was excited to perform.
My bout was 2nd to last as I made my entrance with my trainers and sponsors toward the ring. The air was electrifying as the crowd rose to their feet in the excitement of seeing “the fight of the night”, unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way for me.
I won the first round on points and was probably still ahead in the second round when I was hit with a right elbow that cut the left side of my face. The blow that had cut me wasn’t hard at all, considering the adrenaline pumping at this stage in the fight. It was the severity of the cut that concerned the ringside doctor who stopped the bout immediately. I was very pissed off at the outcome of the fight, hell, we were both still warming up, eager to be “the fight of the night”. I had a brief flashback of the fight had in November 2003 with Joe Srkissian; I almost knocked him out in the second round and in the third we accidentally clashed heads from the awkwardness of his style and the fight came to an end with the judges ruling a NO CONTEST.
I looked at this fight with Mike Mananquil as a great opportunity to show more skills, since he himself is a skilled fighter, but not as strong. This being my fist fight with elbows, I made the mistake of being a bit careless with the range I put myself against my opponent instead of having my hands higher and being more aware of elbow attacks, event though the blows might not be hard hits at times, they still can cut you. I give him credit for sticking to his game plan during the period the fight had lasted and of course a rematch will happen in the future.
I got a 60 day suspension notice from the doctor so I took a couple weeks off for the cut to heal and have started training again without contact. As I said before, I was in great shape at the time of the fight and I do not intend to mope around and get depressed the fight didn’t go my way.
I made the mistake of staying within distance when I was ahead on points, the outcome was a loss by TKO. I would have rather gotten battered and KO’ed than being cut and not being able to continue, but it’s over with now. I look ahead to my next fight in December or January.

Shawn Yacoubian

Sparring Artyom Simonyan @ Athletic Club (left to right - Peter Cunningham, Art Simonyan, Me & Jon Bray)

Cotta Productions Boxing @ the Burbank Hilton August 2004

watching the fights @ the Burbank Hilton