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Middleweight pugilist Vijender Singh is on a record binge of sorts. The strapping 23-year-old, an Adonis lookalike, has almost singlehandedly brought the combat sport back into the headlines by securing the nation’s lone bronze medal at the World Boxing Championships in Milan. He’s also the first Indian to become the world’s top-ranked boxer in the 75kg category.
“Vijender is ravenous for his piece of history. He’s the first Indian boxer to get past the quarter finals of the World Championships and is constantly sprucing up his act,” says M.C. MaryKom, four-time world champion woman boxer.
“Yeh dil maange more,” chirps the son of a bus driver, who thought boxing would be the fast track to a government job and a secure p
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| Vijender Singh’s bout against Sergiy Derevyanchenko of Ukraine in the quarter finals of the World Boxing Championships in Milan where he defeated the Ukrainian |
ension plan. “All young boys in Haryana think like that. They don’t know how to think in any other way,” he quips.
Vijender has stacked up a bouquet of accomplishments to fob off critics who say he still isn’t quite a golden boy. He leads the pack in his weight category, according to the latest rankings released by the International Boxing Association (AIBA). Originally trailing Cuban boxer Emilio Correa Bayeux, he has now trumped all competition in the middleweight category by grossing 2700 points post his World Championships success.
“Vijender has moved up the pecking order at blurring speed thanks to his bronze medal wins at the Olympic qualifying tournaments, the Asian Championships in China and the World Championships in Milan. Breaking barriers is now a habit with him,” says P.K.Muralidharan Raja, secretary general, Indian Boxing Federation.
The two big daddy tournaments coming up next for the ace boxer are the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and the 16th Asian Games to be held in November next year in Guangzhou, China. Before that, he’ll also be fighting in a host of tournaments lined up to ensure that he gets lot of practice before the Commonwealth Games.
These include domestic tournaments like the Commonwealth Boxing Championship (where he’s most likely to represent either Haryana or the All India Police) and international ones like the Chemie Pokal tournament in Halle, Germany, and the Grand Prix at the Czech Republic. Federation officials want him to fight in at least five competitions as a warm-up to the Commonwealth Games, though they haven’t finalised the actual tournaments yet.
That’s not all. There’s another series of competitions that will also double up as training sessions for Vijender in England early next year that will last for 15 to 20 days. The boxer is expected to be a part of this camp as well as another similar drill in two locations, China and Kazakhstan next year.
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| The ace boxer flaunts a Rohit Bal achkan at the HDIL India Couture Week |
Officials have also planned an equally elaborate sporting calendar for the fist-first sports star this year. Vijender will join the national boxing coaching camp on October 15 in Patiala where a rigorous training schedule awaits him. However, officials and coaches maintain Vijender is free to balance his own set of commitments.
And Vijender has already committed to a variety of projects that borrow heavily from his image of a topnotch boxer as well as a lighthearted entertainer. The Fists of Fury lad from Kaluwas village in Haryana is launching a one-man campaign for the Renaissance of Indian boxing. He still has only a collection of bronzes and not the hugely coveted gold, but he’s Indian boxing’s glossiest star and has notched up earnings of several crores a year. As part of his deal with Percept Talent Management, Vijender gets to pad his wallet by an amount that’s significantly more than most of the non-cricketing stars.
“Our contract with Vijender is dynamic. His performances in international platforms will be used to promote an array of sports like scuba diving, skydiving, bungee jumping that are speedily gaining currency across the world,” says Shailender Singh, joint managing director, Percept.
Percept’s arrangement with Vijender includes him making film and TV appearances, participating in promotional shows and boxing contests.
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| The Olympic bronze medallist has been awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna this year |
First up is his appearance as host-mentor in the boxing reality series The Contender, the aim of which is to search for a ‘new boxing superstar’. Bulldog Media and Entertainment, the outfit that’s bringing the show to India, lists Hollywood icon Sylvester ‘Rocky’ Stallone as one of its founding members. “The show offers an explosive mix of boxing and entertainment,” says Singh.
It’s clear Vijender has a terrific ability to grab eyeballs. He’s sharpened his faculty to draw in the crowds and cement his career as part-time entertainer by appearing in a host of glitzy shows. At Nach Baliye 4, the lanky lad shook a leg with Bipasha Basu who’d promised him a date if he managed to bring home an Olympic gold. But the boxer isn’t overawed by the stars. “It’s never an overwhelming response to meet celluloid characters these days,” he says nonchalantly.
His forays on the silver screen have proved the sporting genius is comfortable pulling a fast one both in and out of the ring with equal elan. On the sets of choreographer-turned-director Farah Khan’s chat show, Tere Mere Beach Mein, the boxing ace unapologetically said he wasn’t the least awkward about the fact his English isn’t that fluent.
His model-like features have definitely gone a long way to hiking up his popularity quotient. And he’s constantly adding to it. In Tere Mere Beach Mein, he even wooed the audience with a mock boxing match with Priyanka Chopra and let the actress win hands down. “It’s important to have that element of fun in your life. It’s a fine balance that one has to maintain. Most of the time I have a whale of a time entertaining people,” he states.
And there are more extra-curricular activities embellishing his résumé. He effortlessly slipped into the shoes of a model at HDIL India Couture Week in Mumbai, flaunting a Rohit Bal achkan. “Post Beijing Olympics, critics went to town slamming my showstopper acts in fashion events. Those disparaging comments act as fuel in all my bouts,” claims the six-foot star of the ring.
If TV shows with huge TRPs and catwalks are bringing in the big bucks, so are endorsement deals with heavy duty brands like Pepsi and Bajaj Allianz. And the boxer’s movie star looks have ensured there are even a nice pile of film offers to choose from — though he isn’t biting for now. “I get that all the time but I wouldn’t like to take them up at this stage of my career,” he says.
“His career graph is inching upwards at a steady pace right now. There’s nothing casual about the way he looks at his life’s goals,” says Jaydev Bisht, India’s assistant boxing coach at the Beijing Olympics and the recipient of the Dronacharya Award this year.
If there’s one thing the young boxer hasn’t lost sight of, is his Commonwealth Games performance: “I’ll definitely gun for gold in the upcoming Games,” he says.
Singh’s also weighing his options and has expressed a desire to turn professional by joining a franchise of the World Series of Boxing (WSB) leagues, an intercontinental boxing championship slated to start in December 2010. “Yes, it translates into a bit of money and gloss and I’m keen to get both if that brings the sport into focus,” he says.
The WSB will have 12 city-based franchisees, four each from Asia, Europe and America, and will organise meets to decide a world champion.
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| Vijender follows a punishing practice regimen before every major tournament |
For a national icon like Vijender, it’s a bit of a tricky situation since he won’t be allowed to participate in the Commonwealth and Asian Games once he turns professional. However, both these competitions will take place before the WSB tournaments start.
Decorated with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award this year, Singh maintains it’s his rigorous training discipline that helps him get the better of opponents. He gets up at the crack of dawn for punishing practice sessions. And before every major tournament there are camps stretching for four to five months with anything between five and six hours of daily training. “Each day is reserved for an individual sports discipline that addresses specific body parts,” says Singh. There’s a variety of routines on offer like weight training, short and long sprints and even football.
And that’s not all. The evenings are reserved solely for boxing regimens where he practices sparring and takes part in bouts.
According to Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu, chief national boxing coach, Singh has a cool head along with a disciplined approach to the sport: “Most of the times he’s in control and there are very few occasions when I’ve seen him get nervous. That’s just not his style.”
Agrees Vijender: “My high confidence stems from the intensive nature of my training. I’m at ease when I’m practising. Whenever I manage to squeeze out precious moments from my schedule, I try and catch 40 winks. If someone asks me what’s my favourite leisure activity, I say napping,” he wisecracks.
He’s also extremely careful about his diet. “In boxing, categories are based on weight and one has to keep a tab on what the scales say,” explains Bisht. So, Vijender maintains a healthy balance between protein and carbohydrate-rich food items that are full of energy but don’t tip the scales too high.
Says Vijender: “I like to take care of myself and that’s the only way forward in such extremely competitive sports disciplines. There’ll always be critics. But the moment you win, people forget what they had to say earlier.”