The Rise of an Olympian

This is the first of a three-part feature story on the life and career of undefeated Glendale boxing phenom Vanes “The Nightmare” Martirosyan. It will run in consecutive installments.

Before the “Nightmare,” there was just a dream.

The fame, honor and respect that Vanes Martirosyan has garnered as an amateur prodigy, a teenage Olympian and a professional boxing prospect, and the ultimate glory the fast-rising undefeated welterweight hopes to yet capture as a world title holder — it all started as a gleam in the eye of his father Norik Martirosyan.

And before the dream was Vanes’ to realize, it belonged to Norik.

Vanes “The Nightmare” Martirosyan, now 23 years old with a record of 25-0 and presumably on the threshold of an imminent title fight, has only distant memories of Abovyan, Armenia, where he was born and lived until age 4, at which time he moved to the Glendale area with his grandparents, father and mother Zhenik and his three siblings in 1991.

But it’s in the family’s homeland that this story begins.

As an 18-year old soldier in the Armenian army, Norik first learned to box. It was there that he fell in love with the sport and came home with modest aspirations of developing a life of his own in boxing.

His own father had different ideas.

“My grandpa didn’t let him fight, it was tough over there and he had to work,” Vanes says. “He wanted him to get a job and thought there was no future in boxing over there.

“But [Norik] loved it, he’s always loved it.”

The move to the United States, which occurred after Norik lost his right hand in a grenade explosion while serving in the Nagorno-Karabakh War against Azerbaijan, brought with it opportunities for Vanes and his siblings that Norik never had, including the freedom to enjoy a pastime, or even pursue a career, in boxing.

A rambunctious kid with tireless energy, Vanes frequently found himself getting in tussles in the neighborhood around his family’s new home.

“I was always getting into fights at Maple Park,” he recalls. “Not big fights or anything, but when older guys would stand in front of me, I would not back down, like bullies and stuff. I was little, but I held my own.”

In response, Norik found a local gym in Glendale where Vanes could channel his vigor into learning to box and Norik could take all three of his sons to train in his spare time.