The main goal for any athlete is to win, and boxing is no exception. Winning in the ring requires not only professional skills, persistence, and sports enthusiasm. Although hard work, perseverance, incredible desire, and exhausting training are extremely important in achieving the goal, one must live, breathe, and burn with boxing. When stepping into the ring, a boxer must be confident in their strength, endurance, and the only possible winning outcome of the fight. This is what boxing coach Arman Sargsyan believes, who was formerly the Champion of Russia, the Champion of the CIS and Slavic countries according to WBC, the Champion of Asia according to WBC, and the World Champion according to WBL in the lightweight category.
Having competed in 110 amateur matches and 14 professional bouts, he knows the true value of victory like no one else, and understands that it takes not only the boxer’s athletic prowess, but also the professionalism and skill of his trainer. He has learned from personal experience that even a talented and highly capable boxer cannot truly reach his full potential or achieve championship level without a worthy coach and quality interaction with them. This decorated athlete and mentor fully agrees with the statement of a well-known promoter that “seventy percent of a future athlete’s success depends on the trainer.”
Speaking about boxing and victories, Arman believes that on one hand, boxing is truly a tough and brutal sport, but on the other hand, it is a beautiful, spectacular, and fair sport. It not only develops character, willpower, courage, endurance, and determination but also teaches discipline, respect, restraint, the ability to make balanced decisions, as well as how to take a hit and overcome oneself, which is extremely necessary not only in the ring but also in everyday life. And if someone thinks that fights are won solely by strength, they are greatly mistaken. Of course, the level of physical fitness and punching power, according to the former champion, are of great importance, but fights in the professional ring are mainly won by the head and tactics, that is, unconventional thinking, the ability to build the right combinations, anticipate the opponent’s actions, and so on.
And who, if not a coach, is capable of teaching all of this and not only unlocking a boxer’s potential but also raising them in such a way that they are confident in their ability to defeat their opponent and can do so long before the fight begins. But there is one caveat. Knowing one’s capabilities and actually winning are two different things. Therefore, one cannot discount the importance of practicing every punch and perfecting technique.
Arman Sargsyan knows about these and other intricacies of boxing not only from hearsay, as he himself has gone through all the hardships of this sport, from an amateur boxer to a professional one, becoming a coach not only for beginners, but also for titled athletes. He believes that coaching is similar to the work of a sculptor. Just as a simple stone or marble comes to life in the hands of an artist, so do novice boxers become champions “in the hands” of an experienced mentor. However, in boxing and in many other sports, it has become commonplace for the titanic efforts of even the greatest coaches to be overshadowed by their famous pupils.
But Arman Sargsyan is convinced that there are no easy victories, as behind each one there is daily, persistent, exhausting, and diligent work, equally on the part of the boxer and his mentor.
