annmaria de marsThere’s been a lot made about the comments of Dr. AnnMaria De Mars regarding her daughter Ronda Rousey’s head coach Edmond Tarverdyan of Glendale Fighting Club in Glendale, Calif. Rousey’s mom has labeled him as a “bad person” a “worthless human being” and has warned people not to train at his gym. She even said she’d run her daughter’s head coach over with her car if it wasn’t illegal.

It does seems odd coming from the judo champion mother of the UFC women’s bantamweight champ, the matriarch who has had so much positive influence on her daughter’s success. It seemed odd for this rift to be made public especially when Ronda has a fight coming up.

But in this new exclusive interview with ProMMAnow.com’s Dr. Rhadi Ferguson (an Olympic teammate of Ronda’s), Dr. De Mars sheds some more light on why she feels the way she does about Coach Edmond.

“Because he is extremely disrespectful to women,” De Mars explained. “If you read in Ronda’s book, you know when she walked into his gym she had been a Junior World gold medalist, Olympic medalist, World medalist in judo and he (Tarverdyan) didn’t give her the time of day. And he has had that exact same pattern with many women in the gym and I have seen it with my own eyes where they train there and it’s basically a waste of their time. And they’re talked to in a way that just makes my jaw drop.”

Dr. De Mars then recounts an experience she had in judo with a coach that reminds her of Edmond. “I see that with Edmond. People who actually do worse (after going to the gym), but he keeps telling them how great they are, how great they are doing, and they stay there. It’s pathetic.”

With Ronda scheduled to take on Holly Holm next month, Dr. De Mars explained the timing of her comments and said the interview she did with LatiNation that is getting so much attention, was actually taped weeks ago and she’s not even sure the fight had been announced yet. And aside from that, she’s already had this conversation with Ronda. … Of course she has.

“We talked about it before and she said, ‘Oh I got a fight coming up'” explained De Mars. “You only get that pass from me once. Whatever she wants to do in her career, that’s her business, but if you’re in a situation where you’re really causing harm to other people by being used as bait to lure people in there, I think somebody needs to speak up. And all I did was say publicly what people have been whispering for years, but no one had the balls to speak up because Edmond is like that gatekeeper to Ronda.”

Listen in to the full interview below (talk about Edmond starts at approx. 2 minute mark):

Check out Dr. De Mars’ educational video games at www.7generationgames.com.

8 thoughts on “EXCLUSIVE: Rousey’s Mom explains comments regarding daughter’s head coach”
  1. If it is Ronda’s business then why would you create a rift between her and her coach or are you to stupid to see that it puts your daughter in a precarious position on the eve of her fight. Oh yeah…I remember now. Ronda doesn’t need a coach. Ronda can just win all her fights by armbar…but that was getting boring to fans. You have major insecurity issues

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