Sangita Dhami was 19 when she won a gold medal in wrestling for the first time. It was at the 13th South Asian Games in December 2019 in Nepal. Dhami was competing in the women’s 55kg category.

A gold medal at the South Asian level probably led many, including her coach Rajendra Chand, to think that Dhami could do more in wrestling. Dhami was one of the 30 girls from different schools in Kanchanpur district who showed interest in Chand’s plan of producing wrestlers.

“Dhami was hard-working and brave,” an elated Chand had told the Post after Dhami won the South Asian gold back then. “She also had the ability to learn new skills quickly and implement them in the game.”

The South Asian Games, supposed to be a biennial tournament, has not seen the 14th edition to date. Dhami has not gotten a chance to test her might at the South Asian stage again.

Dhami, however, did learn new skills quickly and implemented them effectively in the meantime, but just not in wrestling.

Six years and four months after her maiden gold in wrestling, Dhami, who hails from Bhimdatta Municipality in Kanchanpur, is in the process of becoming a pro mixed martial arts fighter.

She is currently an amateur fighter in the strawweight division. And she has a big fight ahead of her, at the Immortal Fighting Championship-1 in Bengaluru, India, on Saturday.

Dhami is fighting India’s Aarya Choudhary, a formidable opponent.

Choudhary won gold at the 2025 IMMAF Asian MMA Championship and a bronze at the 2025 IMMAF World Championship. She is also a three-time gold medallist at the MMA India National Championship and two-time MMA India’s Athlete of the Year. Choudhary was 19 when she won the bronze at the World Championship in Tbilisi, Georgia, in October last year.

According to Immortal Fighting Championship, Choudhary holds an official record of 6-3. Three of her wins came through submission, two from technical knockouts and one from decision.

Meanwhile, as per Tapology, one of the world’s biggest fight databases, Choudhary, who is ranked 94th in the Eurasia region, has an amateur record of 2-2. Choudhary’s losses came before her current streak of two wins, suggesting she is on a high.

On the other hand, Dhami is undefeated.

As per Tapology, Dhami holds an amateur record of 2-0, having defeated Rajina Bista in the Omega Championship Fight-Season 1 in July 2023 and Iohtilyn Wankhar in the Nepal Warriors Championship-Fight Night 2 in December 2023.

The 5-0 record of Dhami, as stated by the Immortal Fighting Championship, was probably after the three straight wins at Club War Manipur-Season 3 in India at the end of January. The three wins saw Dhami claim the belt in the strawweight division, and she is likely to defend it in Season 4.

Fighting out of Lock n Roll MMA in the Kathmandu Valley, Dhami is expected to have improved more. She has also expanded her fighting techniques. Dhami was the winner of Mat Wars, a jiu-jitsu open tournament, last month.

Dhami, who likes ground-and-pound, to have the opponent fall on the mat and keep on pounding punches, is currently receiving mentorship from Diwiz Piya Lama, the coach who turned Rabindra Dhant into a professional fighter.

Dhant is probably the most accomplished Nepali MMA fighter. He is currently training for his quarterfinal fight in Road to UFC-Season 5 in Macau in May. If Dhant keeps winning, he will be receiving professional contracts and fighting at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the world’s largest MMA event. Lama is Dhant’s coach/manager.

Lama, who wants to see more Nepali fighters at the biggest MMA stages, has travelled to Bangalore with Dhami and Kunjan Kakshapati, another amateur Nepali fighter out of Lock n Roll MMA, who has a fixture at the Immortal Fighting Championship-1.

Kakshapati, who trains in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), is going into the tournament with an official record of 7-2, of which four wins came through technical knockouts and three from submissions. He is fighting India’s Inzamam Ul Huck.

Tapology shows Kakshapati’s amateur record at 3-0, while the database has not yet listed any fight records of Inzamam. Their fight in Bengaluru will, meanwhile, be counted by Tapology.

Nonetheless, as per the Immortal Fighting Championship, Inzamam has a record of 11-2. Trained in kickboxing and sambo, Inzamam is said to deliver powerful front kicks.

But Kakshapati also has some good moves up his sleeves. His major move is said to be a “rear naked choke”, a submission hold that comes from BJJ. “If he takes your back, the fight is over,” the tournament writes about Kakshapati, who has other brutal submissions too.

Including the bouts of Dhami and Kakshapati, there are 12 fights in the tournament that will take place at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium in Bengaluru. There are two main fights—Kantharaj Agasa vs Abdulfakhad Ahmadi and Himanshu Kaushik vs Bishal Sahu—in the event.

Dhami and Kakshapati enter the cage not as stars of the night, but as fighters chasing the moments that could define their futures. And with Nepali fighters increasingly competing—and winning—on international MMA stages, the sport appears poised to become one of Nepal’s most promising new sporting frontiers.