From Armenia
to the cage.
Born in Soviet Armenia on December 18, 1986, Karen grew up in the Armenian heart of Los Angeles — Glendale schools, immigrant household, martial arts as the one language that needed no translation. Karate at five, taekwondo at nine, judo in junior high: a judo black belt by sixteen, twice a high-school state champion, third in the nation.
The road led to one of the most respected fight rooms in the world: Hayastan MMA Academy, under Gokor Chivichyan, with direct lineage to Judo Gene LeBell. Hayastan wasn't a gym you visited; it was a standard you survived — judo, sambo, submission grappling and striking, pressure-tested daily against a room full of future champions. That room shaped everything: an unbroken 12–0 amateur boxing record, black belts in karate and taekwondo by eighteen, and the conviction that technique only counts when it works against full resistance.
Karen turned professional in July 2006 and ran up a 7–1 start on the California circuit. In February 2009 he beat a young Tony Ferguson — the future UFC interim lightweight champion — by unanimous decision. That run earned him the call to World Extreme Cagefighting, the Zuffa promotion whose lighter divisions later became the UFC's.
The defining night came at WEC 44 in Las Vegas, November 18, 2009: Karen out-fought former WEC Lightweight Champion Rob "Razor" McCullough over three rounds for a split-decision win. Three WEC appearances, battles with future Bellator champion Daniel Straus and UFC veterans, and a late-career run of first-round submissions brought the final tally to 14–6 as a professional. Between MMA bouts he stayed dangerous in pure grappling — winning his opening match at Eddie Bravo Invitational 3 and taking all-time great Garry Tonon to overtime.
When the fighting chapter closed, Karen did what Hayastan people do: he passed it on. In 2018 he opened KD MMA in Glendale — and grew it into three academies across Los Angeles: Glendale, Montrose, Northridge. Watch his feed for a week and you'll see what the place actually is — a three-year-old stopping to take his shoes off before stepping on the mat, sweaty kids comparing who worked hardest, pros drilling at nine in the morning.
The promise is the one he was raised on: real technique, real conditioning, real respect — whether the student is four or preparing for a professional debut. The mission runs in two directions at once. On one side, the kids: raising a new generation of strong, confident people, with a growing line of students earning their black belts under him. On the other, the fighters: Karen develops, manages and corners new professional fighters — today KD MMA's competition team includes champions and ranked prospects fighting on national cards.
The work didn't stop at Los Angeles. Karen now teaches seminars internationally — recent stops include Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna — and remains available for seminars and private training through @kar_d.
But most days you'll find him where it all makes sense: on the mats in Glendale. A husband and a father of two, he coaches other people's children the way he raises his own. As he put it after one kids' class — “sweaty faces, tired smiles, and a room full of kids who gave it their all.” For Karen, a three-year-old learning to take his shoes off before stepping on the mat is the same lesson as a pro learning to defend an armbar: the little habits that matter.
