Pro Wrestling League auction: Yogeshwar, Sushil top gainers

Yogeshwar Dutt and Sushil Kumar were among the six wrestlers in the ‘Icon’ category with a base price of Rs. 33 lakh. They attracted the top two bids at the auction on Tuesday.

Yogeshwar Dutt attracted the highest bid of Rs. 39.70 lakh from Haryana.

Olympic medal winners, Yogeshwar Dutt and Sushil Kumar, were the top grossers in the Pro Wrestling League auction, held here on Tuesday.

Yogeshwar, who won a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics in London, attracted the highest bid of Rs. 39.70 lakh from Haryana. Sushil, who won a silver medal at the London Olympics and a bronze at the Beijing Games in 2008, went for Rs. 38.20 lakh to Uttar Pradesh.

Yogeshwar and Sushil were among the six wrestlers in the ‘Icon’ category with a base price of Rs. 33 lakh. India’s Narsingh Yadav, woman wrestler Geeta Phogat, star foreign women wrestlers, Adeline Gray (USA) and Sofia Mattsson (Sweden) were the others in the Icon category.

Bengaluru picked up Narsingh Yadav for Rs. 34.50 lakh, while Phogat was snapped up by Punjab for Rs. 33 lakh.

Mumbai acquired Gray for Rs. 37 lakh while Delhi successfully bid for Mattsson for the base price.

Over 50 wrestlers went under the hammer. Six franchises participated in the auction with a purchasing capacity of Rs. 2 crore each.

The Pro Wrestling League, with a total prize money of Rs. 3 crore, will be held from December 10 to 27. A total of 18 ties will be held during the tournament, 15 of them being league ties, followed by the semi-finals and the final. Each tie will consist of nine bouts and will be played as per the Olympics wrestling rules.

Each of the six teams will have nine players (five men and four women). Each team can have a maximum of five Indians and four foreigners.

The League will be conducted by ProSPortify in association with the Wrestling Federation of India.