Wrestling News: Indian wrestlers love sweating it out on mat and mud, day in and day out. But the outbreak of Covid-19 took this pleasure away from them. With no sparring or competitions in sight, PlayersUnknown Playground commonly called Pubg has become their new timepass. India’s Greco-Roman wrestler Gurpreet says, “It is my second love”.
Pubg is a battle royal online game which has become popular amongst the youth of India. And it is during the lockdown that it gained massive downloads on both Android and iOS platforms. Gurpreet says that when he is not wrestling, he spends hours playing Pubg with friends and families. “After wrestling, I love gaming and Pubg. Whenever I am free, I would just unlock my phone and begin running wild at Erangel, Miramar or Vikendi,” adding that it is better than spending time on social media.
The 77kg weight class Greco Roman is not alone. Rahul Mann, 2016 Commonwealth Games silver medallist spends hours scouring the barren lands of Miramar or would ride ice skis in Vikendi. He would get so engrossed in the game that he completely forgets paying attention to his wife and Asian champion Sarita Mor.
Narrating one of the incidents during an Instagram live chat with WrestlingTV, Mann said that it had even got him in trouble. “So, I was playing Pubg, and as usual was completely engrossed in it. Sarita made a video of me and had sent to my mother who is in Australia. In the video, I can be heard shouting ‘he is behind the tree, kill him, quick’. It made the impression as if I was in a real-life fight”. “My mother then called me and asked what was it all about, I had to lie to her that it was a TikTok video, otherwise I was in for a nice lecture,” he added.
The words like ‘there is a drop’ or ‘look for supply’, has become part of the colloquial language. Sarita says that even while sleeping Mann would sometimes shout words like ‘go there, we have got a drop’.
After cricket e-sports infiltrates wrestling:
Olympic-bound Ravi Dahiya spent his entire three months of lockdown at Chhatrasal Akhada. Due to the current situation, training sessions were reduced to two hours daily. The rest of his time was either spent pranking or playing mobile games with friends. “In spare time either we would watch movies, do pranks or play games on mobile,” the Asian champion said.
Besides wrestling, cricket has also got the e-sport/PubG fever. India’s right-arm leg spinner, Yuzvendra Chahal in an interview to ESPNcricinfo spoke about how he used to spend his time with former captain MS Dhoni playing Pubg. Chahal said that he was introduced to the game during his time at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). He added that the game is very addictive and he even used to play with his fellow Indian teammates including Captain Cool.