Fighting outside the box
JONATHAN HARNISH/daily bruin senior staff

The UCLA Daily Bruin, CA
April 20 2005

Kahren Harutyunyan, a junior at UCLA, defies most stereotypes
typically associated with boxers. He enjoys spending time reading
poetry and listening to classical music just as much as he does
training in the gym. He has also won the North American Boxing
Organization junior bantamweight title.

By Andrew Finley
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
afinley@media.ucla.edu

To psyche himself up for the biggest fight of his career, a title bout
with Tatsuo Hayashida earlier this month, Kahren Harutyunyan pressed
the play button on his CD player and immersed himself in the music.

It wasn’t his motivational technique that distinguishes the 23-year-old
UCLA student from other boxers. It was his choice of music.

Harutyunyan, a junior, listened to the soothing sounds of Antonio
Vivaldi, like he does before every fight, prior to unleashing a fury
of punches en route to a 12-round decision victory over Hayashida for
the North American Boxing Organization junior bantamweight title. His
love of classical music and his enthusiasm for the arts are two
of the reasons that Harutyunyan defies every stereotype associated
with boxers.

“It really hurts me that boxers are perceived as uneducated people,”
Harutyunyan said. “Because of fighters who have done stupid things
in the past, there’s this image of a boxer as a street fighter.”

An Armenian artist

Hailing from a family of musicians, Harutyunyan, an Armenian native,
never fit those stereotypes.

He played the violin as a child. He reads epic poetry. And he values
his time at the library or local museums just as much as he does his
training time in the gym.

JONATHAN HARNISH/daily bruin senior staff

Kahren Harutyunyan, a junior at UCLA, captured the North American
Boxing Organization junior bantamweight championship earlier this
month.

——————————————————————————–

Even the way that Harutyunyan was introduced to boxing distinguishes
him from his peers.

Making a living in the music industry in Armenia was difficult, so
when Harutyunyan was 10 years old, his father pushed him to pursue
sports instead. With the public tennis and swimming clubs closed
because of lack of funding, boxing was the most convenient option. It
also offered some long-term benefits.

“My dad wanted me to learn to get beaten up and not to beat up,”
Harutyunyan said. “It gets you ready for life, physically and
emotionally.”

Once Harutyunyan left Armenia as a 15-year-old, it sparked his passion
for the arts. Upon arriving in Los Angeles in 1997, Harutyunyan was
told that he would quickly ingratiate himself into American culture
and forget about his childhood friends within a couple of years. The
prospect worried him immensely.

“I was really scared about losing my cultural identity,” he said. “I
thought to myself: I don’t want to forget all my friends. I don’t
want to forget about my background.”

So Harutyunyan started reading Armenian history and poetry and studying
the things that would preserve what he cherished most. It wasn’t long
before his taste in literature branched out to other regions of the
world. After reading Dante Alighieri, Homer and Leo Tolstoy, he then
picked up American literature and eventually settled on English as
his major at UCLA.

He would go to museums with his older sister, Lilit, an art historian,
and he discovered his preference for modern art. Though his enthusiasm
for the arts is important to him, he never lost sight of his passion
for boxing.

Within a week of arriving in the United States, he had already found a
boxing club where he began working out. He has maintained his training
ever since.

Weighing his priorities

It’s not just Harutyunyan’s eclectic interests that set him apart
from other boxers. His diminutive stature also helps him stand out.

Standing at 5-foot-4 and weighing just 115 pounds, the Armenian
native doesn’t fit with fans’ images of a big, bruising fighter. His
undersized frame deceives those who only recognize the sport’s
heavyweight division.

“People that have never met him think a boxer is going to be this
big, heavy guy,” Lilit said. “After seeing him, they’re like, ‘Oh,
is he the boxer?’ It’s a surprise.”

Harutyunyan, however, has worked hard over the past few months to
turn his size into an advantage.

Upon returning to Los Angeles after spending New Year’s in Armenia,
Harutyunyan received a call from his manager, Armeni Hakop, who
told him that he had set up the junior bantamweight title fight
with Hayashida for April 1. The match-up offered Harutyunyan the
most lucrative payout and prestige available at the time. The only
obstacle was his weight.

After indulging in his native food in Armenia, Harutyunyan weighed
in at 130 pounds – 15 too many for the junior bantamweight division.
Hakop gave him a little over a month to get his weight down.

Harutyunyan’s training schedule, already remarkably structured,
became even stricter leading up to the fight.

As a student at UCLA, he already was accustomed to waking up at 4
a.m. to run a few miles, coming home to sleep for a couple hours before
eating breakfast, going to class, and then training afterwards. It
was his diet where he made the most changes, thanks to help from his
parents and sister, which ensured he lost the weight.

Two weeks before the fight, they stopped eating meals whenever he
was around. They wouldn’t even cook in the house, just to make him
feel as though he wasn’t missing out on anything.

“We didn’t want him to smell anything delicious,” Lilit said. “It
was very hard and gets on his nerves.”

Eliminating most carbohydrates and sugars from his diet, Harutyunyan
found organic substitutes instead. Still needing to train religiously,
he refused to starve himself or throw up after meals. Instead he
did just about everything else to shed a pound or two, even cutting
his hair extra short and trimming his nails. When he stepped on the
scale for the official weigh-in, it read 114 pounds. The discipline
had paid off.

“He didn’t lose any power or shape,” Hakop said. “He did everything
right.”

Once in the ring, Harutyunyan did everything right too. In the third
round, he scored a knockdown by landing a counter right cross that
sent Hayashida to the canvas. Throughout the fight, he successfully
dictated the pace with a barrage of hooks and jabs. Meanwhile,
outside of a rough fifth round, he was able to largely stay out of
Hayashida’s punching range.

“He put on a boxing clinic,” said Freddie Roach, Harutyunyan’s
trainer. “To hit and not get hit is the key, and Kahren was hitting
on all cylinders.”

The victory propelled Harutyunyan to a No. 7 world ranking in his
division and has given him the opportunity to set his sights on the
world title. Should he triumph in his next few fights, he will likely
fight for that championship, which carries with it roughly $25,000 in
prize money and a world of respect and admiration. It’s this latter
goal that Harutyunyan says provides the most motivation.

“My major goal is to be successful in college and get a degree to
break the stereotypes, and to motivate other boxers to get a degree.”

Harutyunyan’s bookshelf and music collection are breaking the
stereotypes. His success inside and outside of the ring may be
providing the motivation.

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