By Eric Tamiso, FightTicker.com Contributor

Karo Parisyan has a book out called "Judo for Mixed Martial Arts", written alongside Erich Krauss and Glen Cordoza on Victory Belt Publishing. These are the same people that have come out with some of the best MMA books around including BJ Penn's "Book of Knowledge" and Randy Couture's book. Parisyan's book is on bookshelves now, so go check it out!

FightTicker.com Can you talk about how things got started with this book, “Judo for Mixed Martial Arts”?

Parisyan: Victory Belt Publishing had offered a couple of times, they offered me some good money. In terms of writing the book, I didn’t write it, but I added my introduction of how I got started in judo, and included my judo knowledge and that’s how the book got together.

FightTicker.com In that intro section, you mention that you’ve been doing judo since age nine. Can you talk about how your father got you started, and what it was like?

Parisyan: My father had worked a long day and said that I needed to do something. I said that I could train judo. So at nine years old I went and checked it out, I liked it, and I started training with Gokor and I started winning judo tournaments. My father didn’t come to my first few tournaments, first four or five. But he did come, and he pushed me to really make something of myself. Thank God he pushed me, and now I’ve made a career out of judo and mixed martial arts.

FightTicker.com What advice would you have for someone starting up in judo, and why would you recommend judo over any other martial art?

Parisyan: I can’t really recommend judo over any other martial art except if you do judo you can throw off fighters. There are so many knockout or submission guys in this sport. There aren’t a lot of guys who can throw people There aren’t many guys that throw people with techniques. The reason I would say to learn is to transfer it from gi to no gi. You’ll be able to throw guys when you fight, and at this point I think that for all the guys that are starting judo are starting at a young age. You don’t want to start when you’re old. The more you learn the more you understand. Its like a language, you learn a certain language in your household and you learn when you’re young without even thinking about it. But if you dedicate yourself to the sport it doesn’t matter what age you start at.

FightTicker.com Also in the introduction you mention how you were supposed to go to the U.S. Olympic Trials for judo in 2004, but decided to pursue your career currently in the UFC. Would you ever want to try again for the Olympics?

Parisyan: No, not really. I’m pretty sure I could go to nationals and place in fourth or fifth and then work my way up because I haven’t done judo in awhile. But you know, it was whether I chose judo where I basically paid for all my life for tournaments because U.S. Judo sucks. I would have to pay for every tournament , you would have to pay for everything to become something and I don’t know why. So basically I did this all my life and I had to do something that would pay it off one day. So I chose the mixed martial arts because the mixed martial arts would pay off one day. But to do judo in the Olympics, I’d never make any money. I would be doing judo in a country that doesn’t give a shit about judo. If I was in Japan or Europe, if I made something of myself in judo, I could be making money. But here, its baseball, basketball, football because no one gives a crap about judo here.

FightTicker.com Yeah we have millionaire basketball players on our Olympic team. Do you think that MMA will ever become an Olympic sport?

Parisyan: A few years back there was talk about pankration becoming an Olympic sport. But ultimately do I see something coming? No.

FightTicker.com You’ll be training with Greg Jackson soon right?

Parisyan: I’ll be heading to Albuquerque July 12th to get ready for my next fight which is September 6th against Yoshida, a Japanese guy who choked out the kid ("War Machine") from the TV show (The Ultimate Fighter 6). So I’m fighting him September 6th, and I’m heading out to New Mexico to train with Rashad (Evans), (Georges) St. Pierre, and everybody else.

FightTicker.com With this fight coming up and having that controversial stoppage loss to Thiago Alves in April, how important is it for you to make a splash and put yourself right back into title contention?

Parisyan: I have so much anger built up inside of me I just feel bad for whoever stands in front of me. But you know, its very important bro. I want this fight, but eventually I’ll fight Thiago on paper. In the rematch its going to be disturbing what I’m going to do to Thiago Alves. I promise to you, and I promise to everyone else it will be disturbing what I do to Thiago Alves. But its like I’ve never been stopped like that in a fight, never been robbed like that in a fight. At this point right now, I just have to think about my future fight. I can’t think about the fight with Alves, I can’t (think) that I wasn’t there mentally, that I was burnt out. All this shit was going on inside my head, but I can’t think about any of that stuff. Thiago, he won on paper, he beat me, he beat Matt Hughes, he deserves it. He took the fight very serious and the best man won that day. But at this point I want to make an example of Yoshida and everyone else who’s going to stand in front of me until I can get my title shot and get my title. Eventually it will happen I just gotta take the fight game very serious. My worst enemy has always been that I’ve been too talented to train, and now it's catching up with me. I gotta start training or those guys will start catching up with me.

FightTicker.com Your cousin Manny Gamburyan has been successful so far in the UFC. He has a fight coming up at UFC 87. Have you been working with him at all, and how is he coming along?

Parisyan: I grappled with him yesterday for a little bit, it was good. He’s doing good. We grappled for a few rounds. He’s fighting Rob Emerson, and Rob has nothing for him. Manny’s doing well, he's there emotionally. But I’m still waiting to see Manny take on some real competition; I want to see how he does against real competition. But my hats off to him so far; he’s doing really well at 155 and if he keeps training and keeps focused.

FightTicker.com Alright Karo, is there anyone you’d like to thank?

Parisyan: My family, my friends, and my fans. My true fans, don’t give up on "The Heat." I’ve only shown a little bit of myself in the UFC, and that was when I fought Dave Strasser, that was a little bit of Karo Parisyan. But eventually I’ll wow the people. I’d like to thank all my boys, Craig Piligian, the guy who owns the Ultimate Fighter, he’s part-owner. Everyone else, my family, friends, and my fans, thank you very much.

(Photo of Karo Parisyan courtesy of Zuffa, LLC.)