It was neither Yogeshwar Dutt nor Sushil Kumar, who drew the maximum money but surprisingly it was Ukraine's Oksana Herhel, who went for the highest bid on Tuesday in the Pro Wrestling league (PWl) auction. The female wrestler was bought by Haryana team for Rs41.3 lakh.
Haryana also bought the second costliest player in the auction through 2012 bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt for Rs39.70 lakh on Tuesday.
Along with Yogeshwar (65kg category), five other grapplers — Sushil Kumar (74kg), Narsingh Yadav (74), Geeta Phogat (58kg), Adeline Gray (69+kg) and Sofia Mattison (53kg) — were placed in the icons category — whose base price was Rs33 lakh.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil was bought by Uttar Pradesh for Rs38.20 lakh, while, Narsingh Yadav joined Bengaluru for Rs34.50 lakh.
Punjab secured Geeta for the base price and Delhi also got Sofia Mattison of Sweden for the base cost. Mumbai secured the final icon player Gray of USA from Rs37 lakh.
However, the day's biggest surprise was the purchase of Herhel, gold medallist in 2015 World Championship at las Vegas, by the Haryana team.
She was placed in the 58kg category for a base price of Rs33 lakh. After a hard battle, the Haryana team finally took her into their team for Rs41.3 lakh.
The Delhi team captured the third costliest player in the auction through Yesilirmak Elif Jale for Rs39.6 lakh.
Over 50 wrestlers were up for auction. Six franchises participated in the auction with a purchase capacity of Rs2 crore each.
Vishal Gurnani, director of Pro Sportify, who in association with the Wrestling Federation of India are conducting the tournament, said the matches will take place in the six franchises home turf.
"For Punjab, it will be at ludhiana, while Uttar Pradesh will have their games at Noida and Haryana at Gurgaon," he explained.
Each team will consist of 9 players, with five male and four female wrestlers. "The six teams will each have nine players, ie five men and four women. Each team can have a maximum of five Indians and four international players," he added.
A total of 18 ties will be held during the Rs3 crore tournament, 15 among them being league ties, followed by two semi-finals and a final. Each tie comprises of nine bouts and will be played in accordance with the Olympics wrestling rules.