![\"Varun](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Yeh-naya-Hindustan-hai-ye-ghar-mein-ghusega-bhi-aur-marega-bhi-\ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf3-1024x1024.webp\")
Singapore-born Indian MMA athlete Varun Sanyal. Photo courtesy: Varun Sanyal\/ Instagram<\/p>\nAn exhausting check-in, a blackout on the day of the competition and eventual ouster without even stepping inside the competition arena. Needless to say that it wasn\u2019t the most memorable Asian Games debut for Mixed Martial Arts fighter Varun Sanyal.<\/p>\n
Singapore-born Indian MMA athlete Varun Sanyal. Photo courtesy: Varun Sanyal\/ Instagram<\/p>\n
But he created a fair amount of buzz, at first for his detailed account of how the logistical chaos in Nagoya left him without a room to rest and food to eat for several hours after landing.<\/p>\n
Then came the unusual circumstances in which he could not compete. Attempting to cut weight without any support staff, Sanyal passed out during a sauna session and was eventually declared medically unfit for his traditional 77kg fight on Sunday, September 20.<\/p>\n
Sanyal holds Permanent Residency in Singapore but remains an Indian citizen. His father Sanjeev Sanyal is a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Economic Advisory Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been a lifelong athlete. I\u2019ve played cricket, football, athletics, rugby in school. I picked MMA because I had watched it growing up. And I think it\u2019s the most beautiful and most valuable sport,\u201d Sanyal told PTI in an interview.<\/p>\n
Sanyal was born and brought up in Singapore, and holds a Business Management degree from Queen Mary University of London in England.<\/p>\n
Singapore\u2019s permanent residency allows foreign nationals to live, work, and stay in that country indefinitely. Therefore, Sanyal can continue to hold an Indian passport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI picked up MMA during military service in Singapore as PR of Singapore. I love to serve in the military. I was doing logistics over there. And that\u2019s around the time I clicked up MMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up playing cricket in Singapore, played it in university as well. But it doesn\u2019t make you feel alive like MMA does. It (cricket) is not sort of adrenaline pumping. But, since I\u2019ve been in India, I\u2019ve been doing martial arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people wrongly say that I\u2019m a citizen of a foreign country. I grew up in Singapore but I\u2019ve been a citizen of India from the time I was born, and I still am an Indian citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He considers himself as a \u201cfighting nomad\u201d, as the sport takes him all over the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m based in Delhi, my parents live there. But, I travel around to train. Recently, I\u2019ve been to Australia, I\u2019m a fighting nomad. My main team fights in London, in the UK and Warriors Cove in Gurgaon.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to get knowledge from everywhere. You can\u2019t just stick to one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked how many fights he has in a year, Sanyal said, \u201cFor the longest time, I was an amateur. When I qualified for the Asian Games back in January, I was an amateur. Now, I\u2019ve turned professional as recent as in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn total, I\u2019ve had 17 fights since 2022. Out of which, I\u2019ve won 13. I\u2019ve had the privilege of fighting some of the best champions at the amateur level from all over the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started training and fighting in India back in 2022. Before that, I would just train in Singapore and the UK, two countries which have established MMA ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n
India\u2019s maiden MMA medal in the Games came through Suchika Tariyal, who won a bronze on Monday. She had acknowledged Sanyal\u2019s support in the Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of Indian fighters in general get mocked online over time. And I want our next generation of fighters to look at someone like myself or Suchika and be like, okay, we can go out there and take on the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An exhausting check-in, a blackout on the day of the competition and eventual ouster without even stepping inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[324080,64,63,786,1209,785,942,85,467422],"class_list":["post-902269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-asian-games-2026","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-india","tag-mma","tag-singapore","tag-sports","tag-varun-sanyal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}