Kavita Devi made the 1.3 billion Indian people proud by competing at the Mae Young Classic in July in the WWE. She represented our country in the big league of WWE amongst 31 other competitors around different countries. It was also supposed to be a revolutionary step for the female athletes of India, as well. No one from the pro-wrestling industry has not reached so far from the subcontinent, yet.
Although she was knocked out at the initial stage of the tournament, her match received the maximum number of views on Youtube. This was an indication of WWE probably signing the talent from India. That’s what exactly happened after the confirmation came from Jinder Mahal. Creating history, once again, Kavita Devi became the first-ever Indian female pro-wrestler to sign a deal with the biggest pro-wrestling promotion of the world.
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Going forward, she will have training sessions under the guidance of WWE veterans before debuting at NXT or the main roster. While she is looking forward to breaking the barriers for the women in India, we should take a look at five interesting facts of this lady’s initial life to know more about her.
Kavita comes from a small village in Haryana
With the real name of Kavita Dalal, she hails from a small town called Malvi in the district of Jind from Haryana state. It has a population of merely 6000 people and indeed does not have the best facilities for a female athlete. This only points out the heavy amount of troubles Kavita had to bear while reaching to this level especially considering a female child is still a major issue for families in the North-eastern state. So, her story is inspiring.
Khali helped her to become a pro-wrestler
Recently, during a visit to India, Triple H pointed out the main problem while becoming a pro-wrestler in India is that they neither have proper guidance nor a direction. The Great Khali understood this quite a while ago and hence opened his academy in Punjab. This is to make people understand the basic difference between proper wrestling and the WWE kind of wrestling.
Khali was the one to witness the potential in Kavita Devi to be a pro-wrestler, someday and gave her training at his academy, Continental Wrestling Entertainment in Jalandhar. The Mae Young Classic participant always addresses the former world champion as Khali Sir who spends a lot of time to let his students aware of the more pro-wrestling technics. The training was quite useful for Kavita to understand more of the WWE environment before getting in there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNz6T6dxVpA
Kavita has an athletic background
Coming from a multi-sports background helped Kavita Devi to get herself adjusted to the rigorous sessions that one has to undergo to become a pro-wrestler. She had professional training in Wushu as well as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) which is similar to those of the UFC fights.
She has been a renowned weightlifter for the most of her career before pursuing the wrestling career. Since 2007, she has been a National Senior Weightlifting Champion for multiple occasions. The highlight of her career came in the 2016 South Asian Games after she bagged the Gold Medal in 75 Kg – the category in weightlifting. She defeated the silver medalist from Sri Lanka by a massive margin in the tournament held in Guwahati, Assam.
She got an offer from Bigg Boss reality show
Despite all her accomplishments in sports, she was first noticed after coming to Khali’s academy of CWE. She challenged a wrestler named B B Bull on her debut match in a housewife’s character. She stepped foot into the ring wearing Salwar-Kameez and defeated the behemoth female opponent. The video footage went viral, and she was offered a contract from Bigg Boss reality tv show, last year.
However, she chose to focus on learning more of pro-wrestling and got the call from WWE to participate at the Mae Young Classic. In her only match at the tournament, she wrestled in the traditional Indian attire which was a unique thing. It earned her quite a respect from the audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW54t4wDYLA
Kavita has married to an ex-Armed Border Force Officer
Not only, Kavita Devi has been a pioneer in sports but also maintained her responsibility as a family-person, as well. To take care of her family, she served as a constable (Border Guarding Force) under Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India under sports quota. Later, she left the job to focus more on her sports career.
Later, she fell in love with fellow sports-person, Gaurav Tomar, a former volleyball player from Uttar Pradesh. The two tied the knot and had a 5-year-old son. She always gave credit her husband for the success achieved in life by calling him, her “pillars of strength.”
