Armenian Sports News Podcast · Andre Khatchaturian

“Combat’s in My Blood”: Keith Krikorian on UFC BJJ Win, Armenian Pride & Family Defending Artsakh

·26 min·1 clip

Keith says fighting and combat were “in my blood,” tied to his Armenian heritage and family history.

The episode opens with a straightforward check in between Joao Asanichis and Keith Krikorian. Keith sounds energized, but in that worn out, post-busy way that still carries momentum. From there, the conversation moves into his UFC BJJ stretch and the pressure that came with Road to the Title. Joao brings up the fact that Keith came in as the number one seed, which gives the talk an immediate competitive edge. The interview does not stay on bracket talk for long. Keith starts pulling the thread back to how he got into martial arts in the first place. He describes himself as a shy kid who was a little chubby and did not feel naturally gifted in other sports. Boxing was the thing he wanted to try because it looked fun and gave him something to work toward. His parents were not eager at first, but they eventually gave in. Once he got in, he fell hard for it. The story widens from boxing into a fuller martial arts path. Keith explains that he stayed around the gym even after boxing stopped being his main focus as a teenager. He kept training jiu jitsu, wrestled in high school, and still put in work on the boxing side here and there. He makes it clear that the combat sports life was never a single clean lane. It was a mix of disciplines, habits, and the people around him. At one point he thinks through whether competitive boxing might still be the future. Then he lands on a simpler truth: grappling kept feeling better. Sparring started giving him headaches as the rounds got harder and the guys got older, and that changed the way he thought about the sport. Grappling did not leave him with that same drag, even when things were not going well. That difference pushed him toward jiu jitsu and away from boxing as the main project. The wrestling piece matters too, because it adds a school and team layer instead of leaving the story in the usual lone fighter lane. Keith talks about liking the team environment and representing his school, even if wrestling was not the favorite sport on the menu. The interview keeps its tone loose and conversational, but the through line is easy to hear: he found the place where the work felt right. The result is an interview rooted in the sport, the grind, and the choices that shaped his path.

As heard by us

A clean fight-sports profile built around Krikorian's path into grappling and the pressure of the run.

The episode reads best as a straightforward fight-sports profile. It follows Keith Krikorian through the UFC BJJ Road to the Title run, keeps the pressure of being the number one seed in view, and then pulls back to the longer arc of a shy, chubby kid who found boxing before…

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Why you'd press play

You want a fighter's origin story with the actual stakes attached.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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