The player auction of the Wrestling Federation of India(WFI) supported Pro Wrestling League(PWL) saw around 300 grapplers from 20 countries going under the hammer.

The upcoming franchise based Pro Wrestling League (PWL) will be making a return later this month, after it was discontinued after its fourth season in 2019, the player auction took place on Saturday evening.

The six participating teams will be Delhi Dangal Warriors (EaseMyTrip), Haryana Thunders (Vikas Parasrampuria), Tigers of Mumbai Dangals (Aspect Group and APCO Group), Maharashtra Kesari (Sanraj Group), Punjab Royals (CDR Group) and UP Dominators (Rubics Realty).

Speaking to UNI on the sidelines of the auctions CEO and promoter of Pro Wrestling League Akhil Gupta explained the vision of the tournament

"the aim is not merely commercially supporting the players through a tournament but to create an entire wrestling eco system, so that we see rich medals hauls in the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. In cricket, after the IPL we saw there were better cricketers, with Pro Wrestling league 2.0, we will see even better wrestlers being developed. Wrestling is deeply engrained in our culture and an ancient sport of India, we have huge potential to do well in it. If we are strong in Wrestling then our medal hauls in prominent global events will increase significantly."

Wrestling in total has 18 gold, 18 silver, and 36 bronze medals in the Olympics Games, while there are a total of 65 medals at the Asian Games.

Chairman, Pro wrestling League Dayaan Farooqui said that the aim of the league is to bring about a shift in people's mentality where children will aspire to be wrestlers

"the league is returning after seven years, the response has been very good, we have received videos thanking us for restarting it and expressing interest in playing in the league. We are confident that as the league thrives people would encourage their children to take up the sport, this is the right time for children to join any sport as within the next decade or so the sports economy will boom in a big way."

Farooqui said that he and Akhil Gupta plan to make the league a global one in the coming years.

The schedule and venue of the league will be announced shortly.