The Moses Golola Fight as I saw it

The highly controversial fight between Moses Golola and Andras Nagy is still making news, days later, with different version coming up of why it ended the way it did. The man at the centre of the controversy, Roger Mugisha, the MC, gives an insider’s view.

If there is any regret in my life, it’s having been in that position, emceeing at an event where there were so many battles happening in the background that I was not made aware of in advance. I just walked into a battlefield of cliques and camps that were fighting each other for whatever reason.

I also got to discover later on after the fight, that there was lots of questions associated with the World Kickboxing Federation (WKF), overseen by Mr Fritz Exenberger. He was thrown out of the International Kickboxing Federation after queries were raised. I wish I had gone to the place in knowledge of this information. May be then, things would have been different.

First and foremost, I was invited to go there as an MC, by a workmate and friend, Patrick Kanyomozi [Moses Golola’ promoter] and what’s really painful is that I told him that I will do it free of charge. Hmm, have I paid the price!

I went there at 6pm and as soon as I arrived, there was a problem. First thing, I am told is that “the fight cannot go on because Pastor [Robert] Kayanja and his team said that they own Golola and therefore they need 100 VIP tickets and that they want to clear the VIP tent and sell VIP tickets as well. And that the fight will not happen until these conditions are met”.

They claimed that they were the sponsors as Channel 44 [TV]. I did not have that information. Then a cold war started. We had instructions from two groups; there were the people from Kweli Productions [Kanyomozi’s group] who were instructing ushers that people who do not have VIP cards should not sit there. Then there was the other group that was saying that these seats are reserved for them.

The catfights begin
There was a real battle and at one time I kept announcing that if the usher has not told you where to sit, don’t. So that was tell-tale number one. Those battles kept going on and then the VIP area became a mess.

So, Fritz Exenberger comes in with his fighter – which I had no problem with; I just came in knowing I was going to deal with professional people here, and I handled everything very professionally. I said to him “I do not announce results unless you have told me.” That is the agreement we had. He told me to be nearby so that “whenever I call the fight, I give you the results.”

And that is what happened. In the undercard fights, I went to him, he gave me the results, and I announced them. During these fights, Dr [Vincent] Karuhanga was missing most of the time, because he was busy negotiating with Golola to come and fight. The other camp had said he was not going to fight until certain terms and conditions were met.

We were told the fight was not going to happen and I said, “We have a full house here, this fight has to happen.” Finally, they said all terms and conditions have been met, so they will allow Golola to fight. I don’t know how those discussions were concluded.

Then Fritz told me, “I am going to be the referee for this one.” It appeared like he had just decided that he was going to be the referee. He actually told me to announce that he was going to be the referee, which I announced. That was surprise number one for me. I thought, “Hmm, Sepp Blatter is now doing El-Classico!” So he got into the ring and we called the fighters. When they got into the ring, the anthems were played and then the fight started.

In my opinion, I thought probably Golola was hit by performance anxiety. He kept twitching a little bit, and I started thinking that fear has hit him, regarding his opponent. He looked at Andras Nagy do the Muay Thai dance and did not know how to respond to that, because he doesn’t know that it’s a warriors’ dance usually done to bless each other. And you could tell that he was sort of revamped when they played Ekitiibwa Kya Buganda.

Golola was not ready
In my opinion, Golola was outclassed. I don’t think he has the technique and skill needed for that level of competition. He is a strong fighter but he was not in that class of fighting and it was very quickly seen when the bell rang. But then, my biggest concern came in the second round when he was taking too many hits and at one point around the third round I think, he took one very hard hit to his head and I thought for a moment that his neck got stuck. I was like “Oh oh! This guy is in trouble.”

After that, there were many other injuries he kept getting along the way and then the elbowing came in. I think he temporarily lost vision, around the time he went to Dr Karuhanga’s corner. When they flashed the light into his eyes, he did not look steady. He looked like he had a problem with his right eye. Dr Karuhanga was almost calling off the fight, but somehow, he was told, “No, don’t”.

Personally, I thought that around the second round, Golola should have been disqualified for knee jerking his opponent in the mid-section and three of such fouls are good enough for you to be disqualified. But we went on up to the end until the announcement of the results. I asked Mr Exenberger whether he would announce the results.” But he said, “No, you announce the results. He collected four sheets of paper, gave them to a central judge, who then compiled the final sheet and presented it to him. He then called me and told me to announce. Then, when he was handing me the script, he said, “Read the results but Blue Corner is the winner.” I asked myself, “Why would he say that if it is already here (on paper)?”

I walked from the point where he gave me the sheet, looking for an NTV camera because I wanted to announce while looking into a TV camera, for transparency reasons. I was seeing the results for the first time. When I looked at them, I started getting confused. You know when you are reading something and you are like…hmm, this does not seem like Blue Corner, 49-46, 46-44, 49-46.