London Games bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt pipped double Olympic medallist and World champion, Sushil Kumar, to become the highest-paid marquee player at Rs. 39.7 lakh in the Pro Wrestling League auction here on Tuesday. Yogeshwar was picked by Haryana.
When the auction gained tempo, three women wrestlers outshone the leading Indian Olympic stars. The 21-year-old Oksana Herhel of Ukraine was taken by Haryana for Rs. 41.3 lakh, Belarus’ Vasilisa Marzaliuk by Punjab for Rs. 40.2 lakh and Yesilirmak Elif Jale of Turkey by Delhi for Rs. 39.6 lakh.
The league, with a total cash prize of Rs. 3 crore and a Rs. 20 crore budget for the players, will be staged in six cities — Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ludhiana, Gurgaon and Noida from December 10 to 27. With the base price fixed at Rs. 33 lakh, the other marquee players — Sushil Kumar (Uttar Pradesh, Rs. 38.20 lakh), Adeline Gray of United States (Mumbai, 37 lakh), Narsingh Yadav (Bengaluru, 34.5 lakh), Geeta Phogat (Punjab, 33 lakh) and Sofia Mattison of Sweden (Delhi, 33 lakh) — went for impressive sums.
In all, over 150 Indian and international wrestlers went under the hammer in the auction conducted by Bob Hayton. The other big catches were Vladimir Khinchegashvili of Georgia (Punjab, Rs. 35.3 lakh), Babita Kumari (UP, 34.1 lakh), Petriashmli Geno of Georgia (Delhi, 33.4 lakh), Amit Dahiya (Haryana, 30.1 lakh), Tatyana Kit of Ukraine (Haryana, 30 lakh), Vinesh Phogat (Delhi, 29.7 lakh), Bajrang Punia (Bengaluru, 29.5 lakh), Amit Dhankar (Mumbai, 29.3 lakh), Pavlo Oliynik of Ukraine (Bengaluru, 29 lakh), Kogut Oleksandra of Ukraine (UP, 27 lakh), Navruzov Ikhtiyor of Uzbekistan (Delhi, 26 lakh), Rahul Aware (Mumbai, 26.6 lakh), Livan Lopez Azcuy of Cuba (Haryana, 20 lakh), Satyavrat Kadian (UP, 20 lakh), Odikadze Elizbar of Georgia (Mumbai, 19.2 lakh), and Mausam Khatri (Punjab, 16 lakh).
Film star Dharmendra will be a co-owner of the Punjab team along with CDR Group, while the other teams will be owned by GMR Group (Delhi), JSW Group (Bengaluru), Lotus Greens (Uttar Pradesh), Olive Global (Haryana), and Maverick Garudacharya Industries and Mafatlal Industries (Mumbai). Each team will have nine wrestlers — five men and four women. Each team will also have five Indian wrestlers and four foreigners. The Pro League will feature 18 bouts, 15 in the league phase, two semifinals and final.
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