JOIN US NCR Punjab Royals marched into the final with 5-4 victory over Mumbai Maharathis in the second semifinal of the Pro Wrestling League at the KD Jadhav stadium on Wednesday.
Punjab will meet Haryana Hammers in the final on Thursday.
Mumbai took the lead as Jabrayil Hasanov made a winning start in the opening bout beating Punjab’s Jitendra 18-2 in the men's 74kg. Punjab won the second bout as Odunayo Folasade Adekuoroye overpowered Mumbai’s Lalita Sehrawat 16-0 by virtue of technical superiority in women’s 53kg and broke into her characteristic victory dance.
In the keenly fought men’s 75 kg, Rio Olympic champion Vladimir Khinchegashvili outgunned Mumbai’s Rahul Aware 12-5 in a keenly contested match in men’s 57kg to put Punjab in lead.
The ever reliable Mumbai captain Erica Wiebe then levelled the scores with women’s 75 kg bout with a slender 2-1 win over Vasilisa Marzaliuk of Punjab.
The next bout lasted merely over one minute with Russian grappler Ilias Bekbukatov conjuring a facile 17-0 win via technical superiority over Vikas of Mumbai in men’s 65kg to give Punjab a 3-2 lead.
Pavlo Oliynik again brought the contest on parity with a dominating 12-0 win over Krishan Kumar of Punjab in the men’s 97kg.
With scores tied at 3-3, Nirmla Devi gave Punjab the lead with a 2-1 win over Carolina Castillo Hidalgo of Colombia in women's 48kg.
In men's 70kg category, Pankaj Rana, who had defeated Pritam 9-8 in the group stage, rallied to beat him in another closely fought bout which was levelled at 8-8.
But it went went in Punjab’s favour with Rana winning by the virtue of claiming the last points.
In the final inconsequential bout, Sarita closed the margin for Mumbai by beating Manju Kumari 9-0 in the women’s 58kg.
Earlier, Baba Ramdev also fought a friendly bout with Olympian wrestler Andrey Stadnik and defeated him 12-0.