Vietnamese-origin boxer 'makes waves' in Asia

Australian-Vietnamese martial artist Martin Nguyen is a hot name in the Asian martial arts community when he defeated other strong opponents in One Championship - the biggest MMA tournament in Asia.

Australian-Vietnamese boxer Martin Nguyen

Unhappy childhood

Martin Nguyen was born on June 5, 1989 and currently lives in Sydney, New South Wales (Australia). He started his MMA career in 2012.

The 27-year-old martial artist is not originally from a martial arts family. Martin Nguyen was a rugby player. It was only after he suffered an injury at a tournament in England that the Vietnamese-American fell in love with martial arts.

He came to MMA - a mixed martial art with no rules - by chance. After a year of practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Martin Nguyen wanted to try his hand at MMA and started his competitive career from there.

With a martial art that is likened to “fighters fighting like wild animals in a cage”, Martin Nguyen has encountered many difficulties. The motivation for him to be able to stay in the ring is thanks to Nguyen’s father. The boxer born in 1989 shared that his father had to work hard to take care of the family until he passed away. Therefore, Martin Nguyen fights based on the strength of his late father.

Coming from a football background that required the use of both hands and feet, the boxer born in 1989 had an advantage over other opponents despite not having much experience. He was undefeated for 2 consecutive years despite being injured many times.

At One Championship 41 in April 2016, Martin Nguyen caused a stir when he defeated Chinese champion Li Kai Wen. At One Championship 45 on August 13, the Vietnamese-Australian boxer faced off against Singaporean heavyweight Christian Lee.

Born in 1998, Lee has an impressive record after only 6 months of debut, winning all 5 matches, of which 3 were by knockout and 2 were by submission. However, Martin Nguyen only needed 4 minutes and 30 seconds to knock out his opponent and raise his personal record to 7 wins, 1 loss in a total of 8 matches in One Championship.

Family does not support MMA competition

Martin Nguyen faced strong opposition from his family when he started his career, especially his mother. “No parent wants their child to get injured. So my mother didn’t want me to compete,” he shared.

But for Martin Nguyen, martial arts has helped him a lot in life, especially discipline. In Martin Nguyen’s words: “Martial arts changed my life.” Although it was heartbreaking to disobey his mother, the Vietnamese-American boy still decided to pursue his new passion.

Martin Nguyen always hopes to help the younger generations with what he learned from martial arts, he said: “My mother gradually saw how this sport changed me and she supported me.”

An interesting thing to share is that Martin Nguyen has never cared about fighting for a belt since he started his MMA career. He just wanted to compete, that's all.

The Australian-Vietnamese man also really wanted to visit his homeland Vietnam. He originally had the opportunity to fulfill that wish when the MMA One FC tournament chose Vietnam as a stop in December 2015. However, the event was canceled and Martin Nguyen was very sorry about this.

Currently, the 1989-born fighter is actively training to prepare for the confrontation with Murat Gafurov, the only person to defeat Martin Nguyen in his winning streak in MMA.

According to Thanh Nien