Greater Noida, Jan 29 (IANS) The 2018 European Championships silver medallist Mimi Hristova on Tuesday helped Punjab Royals make it to the final of the Pro Wrestling League (PWL) Season 4 currently underway at the Gautam Buddha University Indoor Stadium here.
Before Mimi, Bajrang Punia, Dato Marsagishvili, Nitin Rathi and Anita won their respective bouts to take an unassailable 5-3 lead with one bout to go in the tie.
Mimi was trailing 0-2 with less than a minute to go for the final whistle, but she came back strongly to edge past Sarita 5-2 and clinch the tie in Punjab’s favour.
Jitender spoilt a little bit of Punjab’s fun defeating Amit Dhanker 5-0 in the men’s 74kg category in the inconsequential last bout of the evening.
Earlier, Olympic bronze medallist Dato Marsagishvili put Punjab Royals ahead winning the men’s 86kg category bout 4-2 against last year’s European U23 silver medallist UP Dangal’s Irakli Misituri in a closely fought encounter.
The 19-year-old young Punjab Royals’ Anju, who won gold at the Khelo India Youth Games recently, gave a tough fight to the former world champion and current European championships silver medallist UP Dangal’s Vanesa Kaladzinskaya in the women’s 53kg category before going down 6-19 and let UP come back into the tie.
Captain and icon player Bajrang Punia brought Punjab back into the contest by winning the next bout against Pankaj Rana 6-2 in the men’s 65kg category. The Asian Games gold medallist, who was recently conferred the Padma Shri Award, got tough resistance from his countrymate but came out unscathed in the end.
Anita, who took Punjab Royals to the top of the table upsetting Asian Championships gold medallist Navjot Kaur of UP Dangal on Monday night, did an encore by winning the women’s 62kg category bout 8-4 and gave her team a 3-1 lead in the tie.
Asian championships silver medallist Giorgi Sakandelidze, who went down narrowly to the 2018 CWG silver medal winner Korey Jarvis on Monday, got his revenge winning the men’s 125kg super heavyweight category bout 2-1 and make it 2-3 for UP Dangal.
Epp Mae made it 3-3 for UP Dangal winning the women’s 76kg bout against Punjab’s European Championships bronze medallist Cynthia Vescan 2-0.
But, Nitin Rathi made it 4-3 in Punjab’s favour by winning the men’s 57kg category bout against Amit Kumar on technical superiority after the score was tied 2-2.
–IANS
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