Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Leonardo Barbosa competed in the main event of TGFC 11, which took place last week in Kabul, Afghanistan, suffering a second round TKO loss to Ahmen Wali.
Grabaka Hitman captured the fight ending sequence on Twitter:
TGFC 11 main event:
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) February 11, 2021
Ahmed Wali Hotak finishes Leonardo Barbosa with a knee to the body in the 2nd. Quite the reaction. Afghanistan crowd goes insane. #TGFC11 pic.twitter.com/dDsURSLVgs
Barbosa, in an interview with MMA Fighting, would claim that he threw the fight after an unknown person entered his locker room with a gun and made various threats in a language he couldn’t understand.
The fighter then revealed that the same person who made the alleged threats also came closer to the cage during his fight with Wali.
“He kept screaming, extremely aggressive,” he said. “He got closer to the cage in between rounds and started saying something similar to what he had said in the locker room, only more aggressive. I was winning the fight, I won the first round well, my opponent had a broken nose and needed surgery the next day, and I think I would have won, but I felt unable to do anything in that fight.”
Barbosa admits that he threw the fight, citing the ongoing violence in Afghanistan as the reason behind the move.
“And then that happened. I threw the fight,” he admits. “I came back different for the second round, a series of things were going through my mind. I have a son, I have a family. Him killing me wasn’t my biggest fear because the repercussion would be huge, but, I don’t know, people there are a bit complicated. It’s complicated, really. That region is still at war, there are terrorist attacks going on and people is kind of used to that now. A car exploded while I was there and they simply isolated the street, the army put a detour to another street and that’s it.”
TGFC CEO Abdul Wasi Sharifi issued the following statement to MMA Fighting on the matter:
“Leonardo never told me about [gunman] when we reached to [the] hotel and before the arena. Never talked me so today I heard this story and we agree to rematch the event soon in Dubai. He said that there was not fault of his opponent, hotel and promotion.”
There is no word at this time as to exactly when the rematch will happen, but Barbosa did tell MMA Fighting that the result would be different the second time around.
“This rematch will be different,” he said. “I believe I can win this fight with ease, to tell you the truth.”
