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Ritu, who comes from a family of decorated wrestlers with sisters Geeta, Babita, Sangeeta and cousin Vinesh all renowned professional grapplers, had earlier this year decided to change the course of her career and go the Mixed Martial Arts way.
The 24-year-old, who has achieved several top honours in wrestling for India, signed up with Singapore-based MMA organisation Evolve in February this year and is now looking forward to winning the ONE Championship.
“I hope to win the ONE Championship,” Ritu told PTI on Saturday.
“The training at Evolve MMA is strengthening me in martial art disciplines and boosting my confidence,” she added.
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EVOLVE MMA is the Singapore-based brand martial art academy with the largest collection of World Champions across sports such as Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Wrestling and No-Gi Grappling.
“Ritu Phogat will be competing in the 52kg Atomweight division when she debuts in the Championship,” said Jason Petlueng, director of marketing at Evolve Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) which has over 700 trainees in various phases.
“EVOLVE MMA aims to help develop Ritu Phogat skill set, to further enable her to realise her dream of becoming India’s first MMA World Champion,” he added.
Teco Shinzato, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion and EVOLVE MMA Instructor, added: “Ritu is a world-class wrestler and is learning all the other martial arts disciplines very quickly.
Besides Ritu, Roshan Mainam, the four times Delhi State Wrestling Champion, has also joined EVOLVE Fight Team in February this year.