RAISING HULKS IN HARYANA

Freak Fighter Wrestling in Sampla, Haryana, was set up by Veer Sachin Aadvanshi, 33, a one-time aspiring wrestler who realised in 2010 that he was better off organising wrestling events instead.

Borrowing from a relative, land that once held a lime factory, he now conducts weekly training sessions for eight students aged 19 to 26. The training is free, as long as the students agree to perform at Freak Fighter events — about six big-ticket bouts a year, the most recent of which was held at the Sher-e-Kashmir indoor stadium in Srinagar in May, for an audience of 800.

Sachin’s brother Prince aka Prince of Aggression, 32, who has been participating in these events for eight years, is the coach. At 242 lb, he is the biggest guy around, but the Pumping Brothers, Jai and Nikhil Singh, both 23, have just performed the suplex on him, lifting him and slamming him onto his back. Lying flat, he mutters in Hindi, “In wrestling, the better you get, the more you can take a pounding.”

The Pumping Brothers are twins born with a condition that has left them with only 15% vision. They are driven to practice four times a week by their father, Baljeet Singh, 58, a businessman, from their home 44 km away in Delhi. He waits four hours, then drives them back.

“Since they were kids, they loved watching WWE on TV. If this makes them more confident and is their true calling, I’d gladly wait a few hours more,” he says.

Everyone in FFW has a character and lives it as much as they can. Rakesh Kumar aka Rocko, 26, concludes every move by yelling, ‘Believe that’, because he believes wrestling helped him with his stammer. “I decided I could use it in my backstory too,” he says.

Tarzan the Animal Man usually ends his match with a triple suplex on the opponent; Shane the Stylish Man does the Spear, a shoulder ram into the abdomen to take his opponent down.

“It’s vital to stay in character,” explains Prince, “WWE star Bill Goldberg barely smiled during public events.” Prince says he builds aggression over 24 hours before each event. “I start snapping and become irritable,” he says. “My family hates it.”

Diet is crucial too, he adds. “I eat 1 kg chicken over lunch and dinner and about 10 egg whites for breakfast. It’s easy to reach the perfect body mass, but maintaining it is hard, because you have to work out just enough to balance out all you eat.”