Gabriel Varga

Early life

Gabriel Varga was born in Toronto, Ontario and spent part of his childhood in Australia and New Zealand before settling in Victoria, British Columbia in 1999. He was introduced to martial arts at an early age by his father, Keith, a boxer and karateka. Also a classically trained pianist, Varga formally began training in Shotokan at the age of eight and eventually earned the rank of fourth degree black belt. He made the switch to kickboxing and Muay Thai, along with his brothers Aaron and Jacob, at seventeen years old.

Amateur career

Varga began competing as an amateur in 2006 at the age of twenty and, after amassing an 8-0 record by 2008, spent three months training in Thailand at Eminent Air, Fairtex, Por Pramuk and Sinbi Muay Thai.

Upon his return to Canada, he was given the chance to fight for his first title and he outpointed Carlos Garcia to take the ISKA Amateur North American Light Welterweight (-64.5 kg/142.2 lb) Oriental Championship. He then stopped Chuck Mady with body shots in the first round for the ISKA Amateur Canadian Super Lightweight (-62.3 kg/137.2 lb) Oriental title on August 15, 2008.

Now a national and continental belt holder, Varga faced Joe Concha in an ISKA super lightweight amateur world title match in his hometown of Victoria on January 24, 2009. He scored a knockdown in the fifth and final round and won by decision. He made the first defence of this title against Emil Salva on April 4, 2009 in Langford, British Columbia. After being dropped with a right overhand late in round one, Varga was able to rally back to win by a third round technical knockout that sent the Romanian through the ropes at the end of round three. On June 12, 2009, he made his final title defence with a wide points victory over Matt Embree in Victoria, British Columbia.

Following this, Varga moved back up in weight to challenge for the ISKA amateur light welterweight world title against Devon Henry in Victoria on July 20, 2009. He won by split decision after a back-and-forth fight. In his final bout as an amateur, he took a unanimous decision over Nathan Smandych on October 3, 2009 in Victoria to defend his ISKA light welterweight strap and bring his record to 15-0.

Professional career

Having fought mostly under Oriental rules during his amateur career, Varga ventured into the Muay Thai ruleset after turning professional and spent the early part of his career fighting abroad. In his pro debut on December 12, 2009, he travelled to Flushing, New York, United States and defeated local fighter Omar Ahmed by unanimous decision. He followed this up with another unanimous decision win over Justin Greskiewicz on February 19, 2010 before being invited to compete in an eight-man tournament held in New York on July 17, 2010. Despite entering as the tournament favourite, he was eliminated at the quarter-final stage when he lost to Terrence Hill via a controversial unanimous decision. The Varga camp attempted to have the result overturned and filed a complaint with the WKA a week later. Their bid was rejected, however, as it had been submitted too late. A rematch with Greskiewicz was set for December 3, 2010 at The Warriors Cup XIII in Lincroft, New Jersey, US but fell through when Justin was injured in a motorcycle accident. He was nominated for the 2010 "North American Fighter of the Year" award by Muay Thai Authority but lost out to Kevin Ross.

He returned to the ring on January 8, 2011 at a Canada vs. China event in Jinan, China where he won by unanimous decision under sanshou rules. With this, he earned himself a shot at the World Kickboxing Network (WKN) World Lightweight (-64.4 kg/142 lb) Oriental Championship. Fighting in Victoria for the first time as a professional on March 12, 2011, he heavily utilized knees and sweeps over five rounds to take the unanimous decision and come away with the belt. His rematch with Justin Greskiwicz was rescheduled for Battle at Bally's 2 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, US on August 11, 2011 but fell through again. Instead he took a second consecutive title match in which Varga knocked out Roy Tan in the third round to take the World Kickboxing Federation (WKF) World Light Welterweight (-64.5 kg/142 lb) K-1 belt in Vienna, Austria on September 24, 2011.

After a year out of the ring, he signed with K-1 and made his promotional debut at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2012 in Los Angeles in California on September 8, 2012 against Lerdsila Chumpairtour. Varga dropped the three-time Rajadamnern Stadium champion with a spinning backfist in the opening round but it was ruled a slip by the referee. Nonetheless, he kept a high tempo and fought aggressively en route to winning by unanimous decision.

He was recruited into Glory's 65 kg/143 lb class in 2013 and was amongst the division's eight elite fighters at the Glory 8: Tokyo - 2013 65kg Slam tournament in Tokyo, Japan on May 3, 2013. He dominated Abdellah Ezbiri en route to a unanimous decision win in the quarter-finals, but lost to the eventual champion Yuta Kubo by the same margin in the semis.

Varga was set to face Shane Oblonsky at Glory 11: Chicago - Heavyweight World Championship Tournament in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, US on October 12, 2013. However, Oblonsky withdrew due to injury and was replaced by Jose Palacios. Varga defeated Palacios via unanimous decision.

He was then set to make a defence of his WKN title for the first time against Jessy Petit-Jean in Belgium on November 9, 2013 but the bout was cancelled for undisclosed reasons.

Varga won the 2014 Glory Featherweight Contendership Tournament at Glory 17: Los Angeles in Inglewood, California, US on June 21, 2014, defeating Yodkhunpon Sitmonchai in the semi-finals and Shane Oblonsky in the final, both via unanimous decision.

On April 3, 2015 Varga defeated #1 ranked Mosab Amrani to become the inaugural GLORY Featherweight World Champion. The title fight took place on Glory 20 in Dubai. The decision win was unanimous with the 3 judges scoring 50-46, 48-47, and 49-46.

Kickboxing