Promoted by Rajasthan Royals owner Raj Kundra and Bollywood superweight Sanjay Dutt, SFL is launching the country’s first professional MMA league, says a report in The Times Of India. The kick-off match, to be held in Mumbai on March 11, will feature two big stars of the MMA world: James ‘The Colossus’ Thompson of Britain and Bob ‘The Beast’ Sapp of the US.
A full contact combat sport that has thousands of fans baying for bloody excitement everywhere it goes, MMA allows the use of both striking and grappling fight forms like boxing, wrestling, judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, kickboxing and karate. It owes its origins to the ancient Greek sport of pankration, which was often a fight to death. Thankfully, MMA is bound by rules but the aim is still to beat your opponent into submission.
Meanwhile, as expected, Petroleum men and Airports Authority of India (AAI) women took the honours due to superior tie-break score after posting resounding victories in the final round of the National team chess championship, here on Sunday, reports The Hindu.
The Petroleum team, comprising GMs K. Sasikiran, Arun Prasad, Abhijit Kunte, B. Adhiban and Deep Sengupta, retained the title following a 3.5-0.5 triumph over Maharashtra ‘B' in the ninth round. With 16 match-points, Petroleum tied with Railways ‘A' for the top spot, but was adjudged the champion due to its tally of 28.5 game-points as against 26.5 of Railways.
According to a report in The Hindu, Mayookha Johny will not be competing in long jump in the World Indoor athletics championships to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, from March 9 to 11. The 23-year-old National indoor record holder in long jump will be able to compete only in triple jump in which she had qualified for the Istanbul meet and the London Olympics with a jump of 14.11m at the Asian championships in Kobe last year.
Mayookha is yet to attain the Olympic qualifying mark of 6.65m in long jump. That happened to be the qualification mark for the World Indoors also.
