Champs Mumbai Maharathi go down fighting to Haryana Hammers

by Shrutee K/DNS

New Delhi, January 2: Defending champions Mumbai Maharathi put up a brave performance but could prevent Haryana Hammers from snatching a close 4-3 win on the opening day of the Pro Wrestling League (Season 2) at the K D Jadhav Indoor Stadium on Monday evening.

The evening started positively for Mumbai as their captain Erica Wiebe won the toss and decided to block the 70kg men's category while Haryana chose to block the 48kg women's category.

In the opening fight of the night, Vikas Kumar of Mumbai Maharathi was pitted against Rajneesh of Haryana Hammers in the 65 kg men's category. Vikas was undone by Rajneesh who combined attack with defence and executed some skillful moves to outscore the Mumbai fighter 7-2 and give the Haryana side the lead.

Mumbai leveled the scores in the second bout when Canadian Erica Wiebe defeated Haryana's Kiran in the 75 kg Women's category tie. Wiebe, who won Gold in the 2016 Rio Olympics, was always in control and won the bout by technical superiority as Kiran failed to score a single point compared to the Canadian's 16.

Haryana regained the advantage by winning the third bout as Russian Abdusalam Gadisov with some clever maneuvers comfortably scored against Mumbai’s Ukraine pro Pavlo Oliinyk and give Haryana a 2-1 lead.

Haryana further stretched their lead when Sweden’s Sofia Mattsson proved too good for India's Lalita Sehrawat in the women’s 53kg contest and scored a win by Pin Fall to put her team up 3-1.

Mumbai bounced back in style with Jabrayil Hasanov Azerbaijan producing a powerful display to crush Sumit Sehrawat in the , winning the fight for Mumbai on technical superiority (2-3).

Haryana Hammers once again found their winning touch as Marwa Amri of Tunisia defeated Mumbai Maharathi’s Sarita 5-0. The Tunisian grappler who won bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics, with this victory, clinched the match for Haryana who gained an unassailable 4-2 lead.

There was some consolation for Mumbai as they won the final fight of the contest as Rahul Aware completely dominating over his opponent Sandeep Tomar from Haryana. Sandeep held the upper hand initially but Rahul came back nicely to win the bout 14-5.

Haryana won the match by a 4-3 margin.

Haryana Hammers co-owner Golden Behl was excited after the success of the team. " I clearly feel that the Rahul Aware and Sandeep Tomar bout was the most exciting match of the day. But we were looking forward to Sandeep's win. But in the end, it's a game and things change within fraction of seconds. We came with a target of 5-2 win but we are surely not disappointed with a 4-3 victory on the first day of PWL."