On January 2, not long after checking in to her New Delhi hotel room, Erica Weibe tweeted a picture of a drawer packed with snacks she had brought along from Canada.
Among the items Weibe, the women's freestyle gold medalist at the Rio Olympics, had packed for her stay was a tub of Nutella. Wrestling in India for the first time, for the Mumbai Maharathis franchise of the Pro Wrestling League, Weibe clearly was taking few chances. On a list of travel precautions, worrying about finding your favourite generic chocolate hazelnut spread in a foreign land might feature low down. But Weibe's apprehensions of what to expect were perhaps symptomatic of how many felt about the glitzy IPL-style league itself. Currently in its second year of operations, the PWL - a six-team freestyle wrestling tournament - is only one of several team-based wrestling leagues around the world, but is unique in that it includes women competitors as well. And, with prize money of $2.5 million, it bills itself as the richest in the world.
The Ringen Bundesliga has been in operation in Germany since 1964 and Iran, with its rich pehelwani tradition, has the high-quality Iranian Premier Wrestling League.
Smaller club-based tournaments are held across Europe. The third edition of the Club World Cup was held in Kharkov in November this year with the American team Titan Mercury winning the freestyle tournament. Another 12 teams participated in the Greco-Roman version of the tournament in Budapest. As the newest kid on the block, the question remains where the Indian competition features. The league is definitely popular in India. The first five days of the league generated a healthy viewership of 5.42 crores, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Council India, which measures TV viewership habits in the country.
There are smoke machines and ring girls waving flags. The wrestlers are colorful, regularly interacting with the crowd that has packed the KD Jadhav stadium in New Delhi, where the league is being held. Magomed Kurbanaliev, the 2016 world champion in the 70kg division, has wrestled in Iran and India and prefers the PWL because of all the show. "I had seen India through films but I wanted to see what it was actually like. There's music and lights and TV here. In Iran it was one bout after the other," Kurbanaliev says. The money is another plus. Rio Olympic champion Vladimir Khinchegashvilli , who has wrestled in four different leagues (in Germany, the USA, Iran and the PWL) says as much: "This is the richest league in the world. In the past, the league in Iran would pay as much but the league was three months long. But now it is a lot less."
And, though Kurbanaliev says the world and Olympic champions are coming to India, the eastern European giants are well represented but wrestlers from other powerhouses like Iran, USA, Cuba and Japan are conspicuous in their absence. Kurbanaliev says he knows more wrestlers are interested but didn't get permission from their federations. That's the case with two Cuban wrestlers who were picked up at the PWL auction but were subsequently denied permission by their federation. The timing of the league is also a concern. Sofia Mattsson, who is wrestling in the PWL this year too, was picked up in last year's auction but was denied permission by the Swedish federation because of the proximity in timing to Olympics.
Weibe faced the same hurdle and competed this time because the league is being held during a lull in the international calendar. With the Commonwealth Games scheduled next year, she isn't sure she will return. Vishal Gurnani, director of Pro Sportify, which runs the league, says they are planning to increase participation through coordination with the UWW - the governing body for international wrestling.
"We have had players from 25 countries participating in the league over the last two seasons. We will reach out to possibly every country in the world. A lot of sporting calendars have to be kept in mind. We are coordinating with the UWW and they have been supportive," he says. That's not to say that there isn't value in the PWL beyond the big payoffs. "I participate in as many countries as I can because it helps me grow," Khinchegashvilli says. "You alway learn something - how to wrestle, how to train and how to eat. In Germany I learned aspects of cardio training. In Iran I learned to improve my technique. In the USA I even got a chance to teach. The main thing I have learned in India, is how to control my weight." Matches in most international leagues are held over the weekends, which makes it easier for wrestlers to make weight ahead of their bout. In the PWL, bouts can be held a little as a couple of days apart.
Even though the wrestlers are given a three kilo weight exemption, they still need to be far more disciplined regarding their training and diet. The good thing, though, is that the rules are the same for everybody. "In Iran the exemption was 2kg for foreigners and 4kg for locals. So that discrimination is another reason wrestlers don't want to go to Iran anymore," Kurbanaliev says. For the Indian competitors, there is even more to learn as they train and wrestle alongside world class grapplers for the first time. Last season, Sakshi Malik gushed about her team-mate, three-time world champion Adeline Gray. "How many times will I have an opportunity like this to practice with her? She is an inspiration," Sakshi had said at the time. This season it's Weibe's turn to fulfill the role of her mentor. "A lot of the Indian women are fierce and strong. But when they step out on the mat at a big tournament like the Commonwealth Games or the Olympics, they are crushed by the expectations and the pressure. With this league they get the chance to stand tall," she says. Weibe points out that PWL plays another important role - giving women wrestlers a platform. "The league in Iran, the Bundesliga in Germany, the NCAA (college wrestling) in the USA, these leagues raise the platform for men's sport. The PWL brings women and men on the stage at the same time. From a sport feminist perspective that's what we need." There is much, though, for the league to improve on. There have been organizational hiccups, with ad hoc changes being made every other day of the contest. Instead of a dedicated training venue, wrestlers make do with a single mat in the dining hall of the hotel where they are staying. Weibe jokingly recalls the first day of the second season as a "sh*t show" following scheduling reshuffles. Payment problems have been common; a few players had complained last season of not getting paid on time. Indeed, last season, one wrestler was paid in stacks of dollar bills as he didn't trust wire transfers. The pull-out of the Bangalore and Delhi franchises hasn't helped. Owned by JSW and GMR respectively, those teams had experience running other teams (JSW owns Bengaluru FC while GMR owns the Delhi franchise of the IPL).
Officials admit there were money issues last season and that they paid out of their own pockets when teams didn't pay up on time. "This season, we have got PAN cards (necessary for banking transactions in India) issued for everyone. It has not been easy because we had to get banking details of some players and that took some time," says an official who didn't want to be named. Being a veteran of the league, Khinchegashvili is often expected to convince wary newcomers that everything's legit. "I'm ok with it because I know the documents will be on time. But for others who are coming for the first time it will be a cause of worry," he says. For the owners, the league isn't really making a lot of money for now. Dharampal Rathee, the co-owner of the NCR Punjab franchise, says he picked up a team for the same reasons he organises dangals across North India.
"I have been a wrestler myself. I organised dangals because wrestlers need support. I bought a team in the PWL for the same reason. I want this sport to grow. We aren't making any money right now and I don't think we will in the next few years. But this league can popularize the sport," he says. And PWL's Gurnani certainly sees this happening. "We see the league growing to 12 and eventually 14 teams. This year we were broadcasting only in India. Next year we plan on syndicating rights to 40 countries. Currently it is an 18-day league. We think this can eventually be a 33-day league," Gurnani says. While it may have big plans, the league is also judicious about where it is spending its resources. It won't, for instance, compete at the Club World Cup. It doesn't make sense financially. The prize money for the winner of Club Worlds is $50,000 (about Rs 34 lakh). The amount paid to secure the services of just one player - Vladimir Khinchegashvili - for two weeks of the PWL was Rs. 48 lakh.
"We have to be commercially competitive and we can't do that if we have to pay wrestlers for a separate tournament," says Bhupinder Singh, an official with the Haryana Hammers franchise. For Weibe though, this is a small price to pay. "It's still one of the coolest opportunities for wrestlers," she says. "There's a lot of moving parts right now. But that's wrestling. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It's making me a better wrestler." And the creature comforts? "I went to a store and I found you do get Nutella here too," she laughs.