17 September,2012 08:46 AM IST | | The Hitlist Team
The first set of explosive semi finals had left the audience's of SFL Challengers wanting more and leaving the second set of semi finals with a tough act to follow. With just a week to go for the culmination of India's first action reality show, the stakes couldn't be any higher than this.u00a0To cheer the fighters on the sideline were Raj Kundra, chairman, SFL; special guests Sophie Choudry and Harman Baweja besides the trainers and the fighter's pensive family members.
The female semi-final bout was between Manjit Kolekar and Priyanka Sharma, both coming off impressive wins in their respective first fights. The first round started with Manjit taking the role of the aggressor looking to finish the fight quickly. Manjit executed her game plan expertly, dominating Priyanka throughout the round landing deadly punches and knees with an unerring accuracy.
So much was the extent of Manjit's dominance that she could have won in the first round itself via a submission but the bell came to Priyanka's rescue indicating the end of the round. Priyanka took so much punishment from Manjit that she started the second round with one of her eyes nearly shut, however the show of spirit led her to further assault as Manjit picked up from where she left in round one and unleashed a barrage of punches and knees to Priyanka's face.
At last Priyanka had enough and just 10 seconds before the end of round two verbally gives up propelling Manjit to the finals to face Gurleen Kaur. Up next was the men's bout between Andrew Canday and Sandeep Yadav; the fight had been earmarked by the trainers as the most anticipated fights as the two fighters were considered better among the lot in their respective styles, Andrew for ground control and Sandeep for his stand up striking.
The round started with Andrew shooting for a takedown but Sandeep defended it with a strong kick that rocked Andrew, the rest of the round had the same flow with Andrew trying to take the fight to the ground but ending up being thwarted by Sandeep's excellent takedown defense and counter striking which clearly had him win the round. The second round too began similarly with Andrew attempting a takedown unsuccessfully; this frustrated him so much that he decided to go toe-to-toe playing into his opponent's strength as Sandeep landed several scoring blows and won the second round too.
The third and last round ended up being just a formality as both the fighters were tired, nonetheless Sandeep yet again came up on top winning the fight via unanimous decision and going through to the finals to face the unorthodox Isaac Kario.
Be sure to catch the finals this weekend 9 pm on Neo Prime and 10 pm on Zoom as Manjit goes up against Gurleen and Sandeep against Isaac for a chance to fulfill their dreams and win a multiple fight contract with SFL along with the title of being the first SFL Challengers winner. To watch all previously aired fights login to https://www.youtube.com/user/SFL.
