India’s first MMA reality show ‘Kumite 1 Warrior Hunt’ released on MX Player on 12th February and it’s one of the best sports reality show produced in the country. The reality programme, which is hosted by Hindi movie actor Suniel Shetty, unleashed action-packed battles between the 16 competitors who have been shortlisted and put their mettle to the test in an effort to win the title of the ultimate warrior.
Kumite 1 Warrior Hunt was produced in partnership with Toyam Sports Limited, MX Player’s Kumite1 Warrior Hunt also managed to bring in SATSport News as the Title Sponsor.
The pilot episode gave the viewers an introduction to what Mixed Martial Arts looks like. The pilot episode started the show with introduction of the fighters and also the two coaches i.e Pawan Maan Singh and Bharat Khandare. Pawan Maan Singh was recently featured in ‘Road to UFC’ event which took place in Singapore last june. On the other hand, Bharat Khandare was the first ever Indian to compete in the UFC.
Kumite 1 Warrior Hunt pilot episode featured four different drills
The pilot episode featured four different drills i.e Striking, takedown, submission and focus. The 16 fighters were divided into set of 2 with two teams i.e Team Pawan Maan and Team Bharat.
Kumite 1 Warrior Hunt Fighters
- Siddharth Chandanshive (Maharashtra) (Team Bharat)
- Sameer Jhanjotra (Haryana) (Team Pawan)
- Lakhi Das (Assam) (Team Bharat)
- Shalu Sharma (Uttar Pradesh) (Team Pawan)
- Sohail Khan (Maharashtra) (Team Bharat)
- Neitso Angami (Nagaland) (Team Pawan)
- Rekha Choudhary (Uttar Pradesh) (Team Bharat)
- Harpreet Kaur (Punjab) (Team Pawan)
- Pardeep Hooda (Haryana) (Team Bharat)
- Mehdi Nasirey (Ladakh) (Team Pawan)
- Heena Shaikh (Maharashtra) (Team Bharat)
- Priyanka Jeet Toshi (Bahrain) (Team Pawan)
- Krishna Payasi (Madhya Pradesh) (Team Bharat)
- Suraj Bahadur (Punjab) (Team Pawan)
- Monika Kiran Ghag (Maharashtra) (Team Bharat)
- Kiran Singh (Delhi) (Team Pawan)
A) Striking – This was something unique where the athletes had to punch the heavybag so as to make sure it touched the bell present at the other end of the structure. The bag was suspended over a conveyor belt. Two fighters from each team were put to the task and it was Team Bharat that emerged victorious.
B) Take down
In this drill, the Fighters are supposed to pick up the grappling dummies and slam it at the other end of the room. Team Bharat emerged victorious in this task as well.
C) Submission – The Athletes had to push the logs suspended in the middle with bells present at the two sides so as to fighters had to push it around and make it touch the bell present at the opponent’s end. It was kind of like tug of war which was won by Team Bharat again.
D) Focus – In this drill, the athletes had to balance two bowls filled with water and with the athletes present with their hips bend. The main aim of this drill was to showcase balance and focus. Team Bharat again won this drill.
At the end of this episode, Team Bharat managed to clean sweep the whole drill.
It was a good introductory episode where the viewers got a glimpse of what they were about to witness in the episodes ahead in terms of grappling, striking etc. Although the pilot episode could have been more fighting oriented, it’s important to note that most of the viewers might have never seen an MMA fight before, so it was a decent introduction to the drills involved in MMA.
The Pilot episode just did enough to hook in the viewers and made them wanting more. The viewers managed to get a unique view of Mr Mohamedali Budhwani, who is the founder of Kumite 1 League. His passion and commitment to the sport of MMA is contagious. In the first episode, even Mr Suniel Shetty applauds Mr Budhwani for his passion for MMA.
The MMA India Show will be uploading reviews of all the fights that took place in the Kumite 1 Warrior Hunt in further articles.
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