Bollywood icon Dharmendra will be amongst the big names at the Pro Wrestling League player auctions
India’s pioneering sports tournament, the Pro Wrestling League, will conduct its player auctions in New Delhi on the 3rd of November 2015. The first of it’s kind in India, the PWL will witness more than 200 Indian and international wrestlers go under the hammer, reports The Hindu.
Amongst the 100 international wrestlers from 25 countries and 100+ wrestlers from India, will be Olympic and World Championship medallists. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, President of the Wrestling Federation of India said, “The PWL Players’ Auction will be a big landmark in the history of sport. It will give the six franchises the opportunity to bid for the best players and complete their squads. The player pool is so rich in talent that after the auction we will have six squads to offer highly competitive action for wrestling lovers.”
The event will see six teams competing for the top spot, with each team comprising of eleven members – six men and five women. Bollywood stars Dharmendra, Bobby Deol and Sunny Deol have collaborated with Delhi-based real estate firm CDR as owners of the Punjab franchise, while Sajjan Jindal-owned JSW Sports has purchased the Bengaluru team.
The owners of the teams are as yet unknown, but The Economic Times reports that the Delhi team might be owned by a large South Indian infrastructure firm, while negotiations were on with a Mumbai-based real estate firm, a cricketer and an IPL team owner for the other teams.
The regulations allow each team a marquee player i.e, an Olympic or World Championships medal winner, whose base price will be $50,000. Each team has a purse of Rs. 2 crores. Like the Indian Premier League, each team is allowed a maximum of four overseas wrestlers, while the rest must be Indian.
India’s only two-time Olympic individual medallist, wrestler Sushil Kumar, believes that the Pro Wrestling League will go a long way in promoting the sport in India: “It will be a great boost when the cream of world wrestling comes to India. This will be a great opportunity for our players to travel with them and learn a lot. Besides the League will keep the focus on the sport and motivate the upcoming wrestlers.”
The Pro Wrestling League is a collaboration between the Wrestling Federation of India and commercial partners Pro Sportify, who also serve as promoters and organisers of the event. The tournament will run from the 4th â??to the 23rd â??of December, 2015.