A night of heavyweight action got 2024 underway last night, the first card of the year taking place in Tacoma, Washington and headlined by Joe Goossen’s latest fighter, Gurgen Hovhannisyan. “Big Gug” is a real man-mountain at 6’7” and around 278 pounds, and last night he stopped gatekeeper Colby Madison in the fifth round. Gurgen, who was born in Armenia but now lives in Los Angeles, might not be too pretty to look at, but he can fight, and Goossen, who has trained so many world champions and big names – including Riddick Bowe, Chris Arreola, Michael Nunn and the Ruelas brothers – feels strongly his latest charge can go all the way to the top.
Last night, “Big Gug” upped his work rate in the fifth, when he dropped and stopped Madison to go to 5-0(5). Time was :40 of the fifth. 40 year old Madison, who had taken Joey Dawejko the distance in his two previous outings, is now 11-7-2(7). It will be interesting to see how far 25 year old Hovhannisyan can indeed go.
Speaking with RingTV before last night’s fight, Goossen commented on the strengths of “Big Gug.”
“Gurgen has the instinct to walk you down and fight you in close,” Goossen said of his fighter, who had a good amateur career. “He is athletic and mobile, but I wanted to add more to his game and add new dimensions. I was able to have him box more, including using more of a jab. The more we worked, the more Gurgen has improved and he caught on very well to what I was teaching him.”
Hovhannisyan went pro in September of 2021 and in his last fight before last night, he stopped Michael Polite Coffie in the 6th round, this back in October of 2022, Goossen says a couple of fighters who had agreed to fight Hovhannisyan pulled out after seeing what he did to Polite Coffie, and this is why it took so long to get “Big Gug” back in the ring.
Again, it will be interesting to see how far Hovannisyan can go.
Also on last night’s card in Tacoma, a clash of unbeaten heavyweights took place, with former Olympian Tsotne Rogava wiped out Dante Williams in a round. “Mr T,” a 270 pounder former kickboxer, pounded on his foe until the fight was stopped after just 1:53 of the opening round. Rogova is now 4-0(4). Williams falls to 4-1(4).
While also at heavyweight, Dante Stone scored an eight round UD over Alexander Flores to improve to 15-1(10). Scores were 79-72, 78-73, 78-73. Flores falls to 18-4-1(16).
All in all, a pretty fun card to kick off the new year.