The Martlet

Approaching the Varga family home, it becomes immediately apparent that this is a sporting family. Not one, but two basketball hoops hover in the driveway and a baseball nestles the doorstep. A pair of boxing gloves and shin pads sit in front of the garage, while crossed Kendo swords lay against a downstairs window.

This is a family of martial artists; this is the home of Victoria’s first family in martial arts.

Keith Varga is the man behind “Quest for the Title,” a Victoria kickboxing promotion that will be putting on its fifth show on Jan. 23 at the Victoria Dance Connection.

Varga’s eldest son, Gabriel, was a provincial, national and North American champion before winning the International Sport Karate Association (ISKA) World Superlightweight Championship last April.

He recently had his first professional fight, winning a decision over former World Kickboxing Association title contender Omar Ahmed in New York City. Second oldest, Aaron, is currently the ISKA North American Super Lightweight Champion, and will fight for the world championship at that weight in April. Varga’s two youngest, Leah and Jacob, all have trained Shotokan Karate, in which they both hold brown belts, for the majority of their lives.

On the surface, it would seem that Varga runs “Quest for the Title” so that his two sons can have somewhere to fight. The boys and their training partners routinely make up the featured bouts and, what’s more, Varga openly talked about how little money he makes with the promotion.

“It’s a situation where winning is breaking even. Losing money is the routine,” said Varga.

But Varga’s motivations go deeper than familial promotion.

“If you look at three years ago, it was pretty much only Stan [Peterec] putting on his Summer Slugfest cards. But that was only once a year, maybe twice,” Varga said.

Varga saw a hole in the fight scene in Victoria. A person looking to jumpstart an amateur career fighting out of Victoria would have to go outside the CRD to get more than one or two fights in a year.

“We just wouldn’t be able to compete with guys from Calgary who could get 20 fights by the age of 22,” he said.

So, in comes “Quest for the Title” in January of 2008.

While Varga does say he promotes fights partially so he can be involved in his sons’ amateur careers, the paternal instinct seems to extend to all of the fighters he promotes, or even fighters as a general group. He speaks disdainfully about what he calls “the unscrupulous promoters” that infect the world of combat sports.

Promoters who create absurd match-ups to favour one fighter, who mislead fighters into thinking they have fights and who pay amateur athletes under the table are among the “unscrupulous” that Varga believes are undermining the sport.

“It’s happened to Aaron, where a promoter will tell him he has a fight, use him in promotional material and then tell him a week before hand, after a six-week camp, that his fight is off. Of course, later it’ll turn out there never was a fight,” said Varga.

A time will come where Varga can no longer promote his sons. Restrictions on professional fighting in Victoria (it is technically illegal, though non-sanctioned bouts may occur outside of the city limits) have already forced Gabriel to fight elsewhere and, according to Varga, Aaron isn’t planning on turning pro. But that doesn’t faze Varga at all.

“Hey, I’m in this first for Victoria and it’s fighters and fight fans, then my kids,” he said. “We originally had a two-year business plan and then we were going to re-evaluated. But if I have to keep doing this for three, four years, I don’t care. I love it.”

Because Gabriel cannot fight, and with Aaron unable to get in a full training camp during the tail end of UVic’s fall semester, Varga had neither of his usual headliners. This presented him with some interesting matchmaking decisions.

“I basically spend most of my time working on matches, while my partner, Lisa Mellet, handles locations and our books, and I had lots of fun with this one,” Varga said.

UVic alum Brian Chou will fight in the main event against John Hamm of Calgary’s National Kickboxing. Chou is 4-0 in amateur kickboxing, but carries a 9-0 record in competition Kyokushin Karate and is a training partner, of the Varga brothers at Studio 4 Athletics. Two Capoeira fighters, Sylvan Herberger and Marco Caffiero-Polu, from Axe Capoeira (Yates St.) will make their kickboxing debuts.

“You can’t just put [Capoeira experts] up against a guy with their same experience in kickboxing, a guy with one or no pro fights because they’ve been training Capoeira for seven to nine years,” said Varga. “These two are such well-conditioned athletes and have such devastating kicks that I had to find them guys who are not going to be going into the ring for their first time. I don’t want anyone catching spinning axe kick to the face because it’s their first fight.”

Despite the legal, financial and matchmaking difficulties, “Quest for the Title: IV” will take place at Jan. 23 at the Victoria Dance Connection. Tickets are available, ranging from $40 to $70, at Sports Traders, Victoria Self Defence and Canada’s Best Karate, or by calling Mellet at 250-508-3339.