To develop opportunities for Mixed Martial Arts in India and increase the standards of officiating, GAMMA India has partnered with the Roar Championship, the Bangalore-based combat sports organisation owned by Hemanth Kumar.
The partnership comes after Roar announced in November 2020 plans to start a Mixed Martial Arts league, building on its current profile of Muay Thai competitions.
GAMMA India has been actively involved in promoting Mixed Martial Arts since late 2019 and has stayed active during the pandemic by organising several technical webinars. It was following one of these webinars that Mr. Kumar invited representatives of GAMMA India to hold discussions regarding development plans for the future of Roar Championships. The talks culminated in Roar appointing GAMMA India as the sanctioning body for their MMA events.
One of the first activations of the partnership was the hosting of the first GAMMA Indian national MMA championship from 23-26 March 2021 in Bangalore. The event was organised at one of the training venues owned by Mr. Kumar, who was one hand as a talent scout to identify opportunities for talented Indian GAMMA athletes.
After successfully organising its first national championship, GAMMA India is now preparing to send a team to the upcoming inaugural GAMMA Asian Championships to be held in Kyrgyzstan next month. GAMMA India believes in a holistic approach towards the development of athletes. It recently organised a seminar on strength and conditioning, injury prevention and rehabilitation, and anti-doping policies (in conjunction with the National Anti-Doping Agency) and will be holding another seminar focused on sports nutrition, sports psychology and, sports dentistry in the coming months.
The partnership with Roar Championships is GAMMA India’s latest measure aimed at developing MMA in the country. It will continue to reach out to other grassroots organisations for the benefit of the sport and its athletes.
