Sanjay Dutt to launch a new fight league in India, despite cricket being the dominating sport.
Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt and Raj Kundra, the founders of Super Fight Promotions, have launched a fight league in India aimed at young men.
The Super Fight League-2 Chandigarh was launched at a hotel earlier this month in hope that it would become a household name in the country.
The screen veteran, who made Gandhigiri popular among youngsters, told the Times of India that he has no intentions to do competition with India’s number one game cricket.
“In a country of more than a billion people it is not fair to have a fan following for just one game. Cricket will remain as the No. 1 game but Mixed Martial Arts is out to make a fan following of its own. The league is bound to attract youngsters between the age of 18 and 35.”
He was also asked why he was promoting a fight league when he was well known for Gandhigiri.
“Inside the cage it is MMA, outside it is Gandhigiri,” he said.
Sanjay told the publication that he was involved with martial arts since be began his glittering career.
“I practiced kung-fu and a Chinese martial arts form. Liverpool-based trainer Santokh Singh helped me a lot early in my career. You can say MMA is just an extension of that. When Raj Kundra talked about the league it got me interested.”
The action-man also said that the fight league will be televised live in order to bring the new game to the attention of its target audience.
“Many fighters from Punjab are training and will be seen in action soon. I have a feeling that the league will draw good response in Punjab.
To increase the following the league will be telecast deferred live initially but we are hoping to go live from May onwards. Besides, academies are being opened in every part of the country to make it a craze among youngsters.”
Well-known MMA trainers such as US’s Benjamin Radach, China’s Andy Wang, Singapore’s Darren Russel and Dennis Hallman get train the fighters.
“At present we have 25-30 trainees practising at the Nasik centre. We choose deserving fighters every week and give them three months’ training. If they are good they will be inducted into the league,” he said.
Sanjay was also asked about the chances of his fight league going head-to-head with the IPL.
He said, “Everyone knows there is an overdose of cricket but you have to accept that cricket is cricket and will remain the biggest attraction. But SFL is a new concept and there is a lot of scope for it in India.”
Kundra, who is the co-owner of IPL team Rajasthan Royals, was asked if it was ironical that he wanted to break the cricket-dominating market.
“India is a nation of over a billion people. Other sport disciplines also deserve to flourish here. Cricket is already well established in our country,” he said.
