2018 European Championships silver medallist Mimi Hristova helped Punjab Royals take an unassailable 5-3 lead over UP Dangal and enter the final of the Pro Wrestling League (PWL) Season 4 on Tuesday. Before Mimi, Bajrang Punia, Dato Marsagishvili, Nitin Rathi and Anita won their respective bouts to hand Punjab Royals 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 came back strongly to edge past Sarita 5-2 and clinch the tie in Punjab's favour.
Jitender spoiled a little bit of Punjab's fun by 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 U-23 silver medallist Irakli Misituri of Up D angal in a closely fought bout.
The 19-year-old young Punjab Royals' Anju, who won gold at the Khelo India Youth Games recently, gave a tough fight to 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 make a comeback into the tie.
Captain and icon player Bajrang brought Punjab back into the contest 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 Padama 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 last night, did an encore winning the women's 62kg category bout 8-4 and give 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 last night, got his revenge by 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 at 2-2.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)