Sometimes in life, you find like-minded people. That’s what happened when Tsotne Rogava and Gurgen Hovhannisyan found one another.
The fighters first met as amateurs. Rogava represented Ukraine at the 2020 Olympics, while Hovhannisyan was fighting for Armenia.
Today, Rogava, 30, and Hovhannisyan, 26, are heavyweights with identical records (5-0, 5 KOs) and training partners in the Los Angeles area. Hovhannisyan led the way, finding Tengoose Boxing Gym in L.A., before Rogava followed suit.
“It is my brother,” Rogava said via translator, offering a handshake to Hovanisyan in a Zoom interview. “We help each other, we spar together. We are in the same gym.”
Rogava (5-0, 5 KOs) is set to return March 23 against Antonio Brown (8-4, 8 KOs) at the LumColor “Phoenix Center” in Ontario, California.
Trained by Joe Goossen and Jonathan Walley, Rogava is highly touted. His team has a ton of confidence in him – so much so that he already has two fights scheduled after the Brown matchup.
Although still in the development stage of his career – Rogava is likely a year or two away from a big fight – he left home with the intention of making a push toward becoming a world champion.
“After being trained around the world,” Rogava said, “I realized I had to come to Los Angeles, California, which [I see as] the capital of boxing.”
In the process, he has discovered more than just a gym and a promising future in the sport.
“This is a family,” he said of Hovhannisyan and the Tengoose crew. “I am in a family.”