Guwahati, Sep 21: The Pro Panja League founded by Parvinn Dabass and Preeti Jhangiani, India’s premier professional armwrestling league, will hold its Northeast Trials at the Rukmininagar Auditorium in Guwahati on 3 October 2026. The trials are open to male and female from across Assam and the eight states of the Northeast, with registrations now open on the league’s official campaign creatives and social media channels.
Pro Panja League has partnered with Assamese film production company ‘Zeal Creations’ to bring the North East Trials to Guwahati.
Zeal Creations director Shyamantak Gautam spoke about the association and said,
“We at Zeal Creations are super excited to associate with PPL (Pro Panja League) as a Primary Sponsor & Partner, with a shared vision to promote and uplift Panja across Northeast India, especially Assam.”“We are also working towards a feature film on Panja in the coming days, and we look forward to building a long-term association with PPL to take this powerful sport and its stories to a much larger audience,’ he added.
The trials arrive at a significant moment for the sport in India. The country will host the 47th World ArmWrestling Championships and the 28th World Para ArmWrestling Championships in New Delhi later this year, bringing together athletes from more than 75 nations under the World ArmWrestling Federation. Eighteen athletes from Assam have already been named in the India squad for the World Championships, one of the strongest regional representations in the national contingent.
Assam has long been one of the country’s most productive grounds for the sport, producing national champions such as Tridip Medhi, Pranjit Saikia, Amit Chaudhary, Deepenker Mech, Ishan Kashyap, Arvika Dutta and Parasmita Gogoi. The Assam ArmWrestling State Championship in Guwahati has drawn more than 500 competitors, an indication of the participation basis the league expects to tap into at the October trials.
The Guwahati trials campaign features of the Pro Panja League, three of the league’s most recognisable competitors, fronting the call for entries across the region. Their presence on the campaign is intended to signal to athletes across Assam and the Northeast that the trials open the same competitive pathway the three of them came through. Athletes selected through the Guwahati trials will get Golden Tickets to enter the Pro Panja League’s competitive pathway, which offers ranked competition, prize money, and a route into the Pro Panja squad.
Speaking on the trials opening in the Northeast, Parvinn Dabass, Co-Founder, Pro Panja League and Swen Entertainment shares,
“Every time we have run events in the Northeast, the talent that gets discovered has surprised us. What has been missing is not ability, it is structure . That is what the Pro Panja League brings to Guwahati and the North East this October; proper weight categories, transparent selection, prize money and a clear path from a trial table to the Pro Panja League. The Northeast does not need to be discovered, already the Pro Panja League has many star athletes from the North Eastern region of our country and who are doing extremely well.”
Preeti Jhangiani, President, People’s ArmWrestling Federation India; Vice-President, Asian ArmWrestling Federation also shared,
“Assam is one of the most consistent producers of arm wrestling talent in the country, and the numbers speak for themselves. With India hosting the World Championships in New Delhi this year and a large contingent from Assam already in India colours, there could not be a better time to be an arm wrestler in this region. We want every athlete in the Northeast who has been training in a local akhara or a college gym to walk into Rukmininagar Auditorium on 3rd October and put their hand on the table.”
Pro Panja League is India’s first and premier professional arm-wrestling league, co-founded by Parvinn Dabass and Preeti Jhangiani of Swen Entertainment. Launched in February 2020, the league held its first full six-team season between 28 July and 13 August 2023, telecast live on Sony Sports Network, DD Sports and Fan Code, with actor and entrepreneur Suniel Shetty coming on board as a minority stakeholder in August 2023. The league is the only professional sporting property in India to feature male, female and para-athletes on the same stage with equal prize money and has staged events at venues across the country.