On the evening of April 22, at Rach Mieu Stadium, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese MMA fans witnessed international-class competitions at the Lion Championship 05 (LC05) event.
One of the highlights of the event was the match between Brazilian mixed martial artist Robson De Oliveira Soares and Vietnamese Tran Ngoc Luong in the B-60kg weight class. The match ended in a point-based contest. Tran Ngoc Luong surprisingly won on points when 2/3 of the judges scored the victory for the fighter from SSC (29/28, 28/29, 29/28).
Boxer Robson Oliveira stunned after losing to Ngoc Luong
It is worth mentioning that this victory caused a strong reaction from Robson Oliveira, because they thought that the Brazilian boxer competed much better than Ngoc Luong. Sharing after the match, Robson Oliveira's coach Gilberto Bottiglieri was indignant: "This is the worst cheating I have ever witnessed in an MMA match. The Vietnamese boxer was taken down in all three rounds."
The Vietnam Mixed Martial Arts Federation (VMMAF) held a meeting right after LION Championship 05 ended and announced: "After the LION 05 event ended, VMMAF and the LION Championship organizing committee held a meeting to review the organization and professional work, and re-evaluate a number of matches with signs of professional errors, including the match between Tran Ngoc Luong and Robson Oliveira in the 60kg weight class in class B.
VMMAF assigned the Organizing Committee and the Federation's Professional Committee to conduct tape dissection, re-evaluate all matches as soon as possible, give results and notify relevant boxers and referees.
Although Ngoc Luong is a Vietnamese fighter, many domestic MMA fans do not defend him but believe that the Brazilian MMA fighter deserves to win.
On the fanpage posting the announcement of VMMAF about the Federation's Professional Board conducting an autopsy, thousands of Facebook accounts expressed their opinions, most of them were upset with the referee's scoring with obvious bias towards the country's boxers.
Ngoc Luong (red pants) was not supported by Vietnamese fans to win against Robson Oliveira (Photo: VTVCab).
A fan named Dinh Ngoc Ha wrote: "Exactly. What a wrong score, no one in the audience agreed with the result even though Luong is Vietnamese. After watching this match, Luong won and felt embarrassed with foreign fighters."
Account Nguyen Hoang Trung expressed surprise at the match result: "Even Vietnamese audiences were surprised when they watched. Luong didn't throw any punches, he was punched and knocked down but still won. Really funny."
Phi Ngoc Long watched the match live and was surprised by the result: "Bewildered, not understanding why. Many people also play martial arts and understand the rules of fighting, so they feel indignant for the foreign boxer. And most importantly, they will no longer respect the event. I sat in the stands, when the score was announced, I saw him bewildered, I was afraid that he would throw the flag on his back down, then everything would be very bad, but he was calm enough. I felt sorry for Robson Oliveira".
Account Ha Nguyen supports the Vietnamese boxer but wants fairness: "Support the Vietnamese, but honestly, in the last 2 rounds, the Brazilian boxer had more accurate punches. Oliver is the one who deserves to win."
Jason Tran's account suggested that VMMAF take strong action: "Hopefully the Federation's president will take strong action, re-examine the results of the match between Ngoc Luong and Oliveira so that the home audience and foreign coaching staff do not see the ugliness."
Account Thong Van Le thinks that the referee team's mistake will affect the reputation of Vietnam's MMA tournament organization: "The difference is so obvious, but if the referees play like that, who will dare to come back to Vietnam to compete anymore?"
Account Tuan Nguyen Minh agrees that Vietnamese MMA will be strongly affected by the mistake of the Lion Championship 05 organizers: "This is probably a PR trick to enter the iron cage. It would be strange if MMA could develop after this event, now paying 3 times the ticket price to ticket buyers and apologizing. Bloody sports must be fought honestly, winning is winning, losing is losing, and if losing turns into winning, then go home."
Hoang Thai account supports a fair result: "I hope boxer Oliveira reads the comments of Vietnamese people. We support fairness and the beauty of sports."
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