Report of alleged fight fixing in China

Jiang Jie of the People’s Daily Online reports that multiple allegations of fight fixing have been lodged against China’s Kunlun Fights promotion. The event primarily holds kickboxing bouts, but does a significant number of MMA fights, and has held bouts under Muay Thai, Boxing, and Lethwei rules as well.

One criticized contest was the main event of Kunlun 22 on April 12, 2015 at Changde College Sport Hall, in Changde, China. The main event featured Yang Jianping and Kozan Nobu. The former fighter has a solid record, and even fought in the UFC. Kozan Nobu was marketed as “The best karate player in Okinawa” but had no known record. The invincible Japanese fighter turned out to be from Mongolia, and goes by Duru. Jianping won via an RNC in a match that left many observers dubious.

The allegation is that Chinese fighters easily dispatching foreign challengers puts asses in seats, so the promotion is orchestrating works.

Many of those beautiful knockouts were scripted by organizers to arouse attention. With the increasing popularity of commercial fighting games, more and more foreign fighters have come to China, some of whom would are targeted by organizers to act in some matches, several business insiders noted.

You can easily find a foreigner who is willing to fight a Chinese boxer at 3,000 yuan (around $500) per match, an anonymous insider noted.

Fighters from Japan, Europe, and Mongolia are recruited through personal connections or even Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. The fighters are amateur or junior level fighters, but their identities are fabricated by organizers. They will then be introduced as foreign champions with excellent match results, Phoenix Weekly reported.

Zou Guojun, a former combat athlete, observed as a former consultant on some combat sports shows that more than 70 percent of the foreign boxers could not be introduced into Chinese shows as the gap [in talent] remained huge.

We have failed to understand the fair, just, and open principle in sports,” said Zou. The matches are fixed to please the audience and usually end with injured Chinese fighters triumphing over the foreigners.

“Neither have we taken sports as a cultural activity. Sport is a special product. One must include one’s values and soul in it so sport can touch hearts.”

One notorious case of match-fixing happened when a Battle of the Century broke out between Chinese self-claimed monk Yi Long and Thai boxer Buakaw Banchamek in June 2015 on the combat sports show Wu Lin Feng. The first match, with international referees, ended with an obvious defeat of Yi Long, while the second match some three months later ended with all four Chinese referees judging Yi Long as the winner, even though the Thai boxer was the most effective, according to Phoenix Weekly.

Please note, these are unconfirmed allegations only at this point.