Kapil Pokhariya's Journey from Cotton Mattresses to Asian Games Bronze
NEW DELHI: Long before Kapil Pokhariya climbed onto an Asian Games podium, his “ring” was a cramped room in Chakarpur village, Khatima. The ropes were imaginary, the crowd non-existent. The opponent? A pillow.
He would launch himself off cotton-filled mattresses, punch cushions, hurl them over walls and rain blows on a homemade punching bag stuffed with mountain soil. In that small Uttarakhand home, a boy obsessed with Roman Reigns was unknowingly throwing the first punches of a career that would carry him to Aichi-Nagoya and an Asian Games bronze in the men’s 90kg boxing event.
Roman Reigns was not just his favourite wrestler. He was an obsession. Kapil skipped meals, playtime, even family outings to watch WWE shows on television. WrestleMania. Money in the Bank. He recorded the matches, studied them, rewound them. Once the TV went off, the living room turned into his personal arena as he copied every move, every punch.
“I never knew that copying Roman Reigns and practising those punches would bring me this far,” Kapil told TimesofIndia.com. He still has those recordings. He still laughs at how it all started.
A Soldier’s Son, Far From Boxing’s Heartlands
Chakarpur, in Khatima, is a long way from India’s established boxing nurseries. There are no big academies, no conveyor belt of champions. There was, however, discipline at home.
His father, Narendra Singh Pokhariya, served in the Indian Army. He wanted his son to study hard and enter the forces as a commissioned officer, to climb higher than he had. Boxing was nowhere in the script.
Narendra would often come home to the sight of his son mimicking WWE stars and wrecking household items in the process. The reaction was predictable at first: scoldings, even beatings, as the damage piled up. But something changed the day he saw Kapil dragging a thick sack home from school, filling it with sand and then pounding it with everything he had.
A nearby school had a teacher who coached boxing. Kapil had seen students hitting a proper punching bag there. He wanted one of his own, so he built it. That homemade sack forced his father to look at his son’s antics differently.
“My father scolded me in the beginning, but later he took me to a training centre and got me admitted there. That is how I got into boxing,” Kapil said.
Learning the Craft on a Dusty Ground
There was no gleaming indoor hall waiting for him. No high-performance centre. Just a modest training ground where boys of different ages shared space, gloves and dreams.
In that corner of Uttarakhand, boxing barely existed as a serious sport. But there was one man who kept the flame alive: coach Pooran Bohra. He would gather a small group of boys and train them for a few hours on selected days of the week.
“I come from a small village where boxing was never a popular sport. Pooran Bohra sir was there. He trained a small group of boys for just a few hours on selected days of the week. But I was interested in learning. I listened to him carefully and repeated everything he taught me when I returned home,” Kapil recalled.
The repetition, the extra work alone, slowly turned the WWE fan into a proper boxer. In 2015, he stepped into the ring for his first state-level competition. The nerves hit harder than any punch. A big crowd, a first bout, a first taste of real pressure — and a defeat in the opening round.
“I was really disappointed. It was the first bout of my life, and I was seeing such a large crowd for the first time. I lost in the first round. But that competition and the defeat taught me a lot. My interest in boxing grew even stronger after that,” he said.
The loss stung, but it also sharpened him. The next time he turned up at a big event, it was at the national level. This time he didn’t just survive. He won. He left with victories, a gold medal and prize money that changed the direction of his life.
That medal opened the door to the Indian Army.
The Army Ring and a Father’s Hug
Kapil joined the Army in April 2017, appointed as a havaldar. The uniform his father had worn now came with something more: access to better coaching, structured training and a pathway into Services competitions.
With the Army behind him, his boxing career kicked forward. He trained seriously, fought regularly, collected medals and built a reputation. The boy who had once been scolded for breaking things at home now had the full backing of the institution his father loved.
“My father wanted me to study and join the Army as a commissioned officer. He joined as a sepoy and retired as a havaldar. But he wanted me to reach a higher rank if I joined the Indian Army,” Kapil said.
The turning point at home came with that first national medal. This time, there were no harsh words. Only pride.
“He was very happy. The day I won a national medal, he hugged me. That was when I realised that I had achieved something big in my life,” Kapil said.
The Asian Games bronze in Aichi-Nagoya has taken that pride to another level. It has also brought a promotion. Kapil will now be elevated to naib subedar.
“Papa said, ‘Ab tu mera senior ho gaya hai’,” Kapil recalled with a smile. The son who once shadowboxed in front of the television is now outranking the father who once dragged him away from those shows.
‘Khatima ka Russell’
Boxing was not the only sport that shaped him. Like millions of Indian kids, Kapil grew up with a bat in hand, playing gully cricket and inter-village matches in Uttarakhand. Out there, he wasn’t known as the Roman Reigns fan. He was feared as a hitter.
Tall, muscular, and blessed with raw power, he quickly became a prized pick in local teams. His ability to launch the ball into the distance earned him a nickname borrowed from one of T20 cricket’s most destructive all-rounders.
“I loved Andre Russell. I also liked Hardik Pandya. People used to call me ‘Khatima ka Russell’ because of my power. The boys wanted me in their team because I could hit big sixes,” he said, laughing.
That same explosive strength now fuels his 90kg punches. The bat has been replaced by gloves, the sixes by combinations, but the instinct to hit hard remains.
Eyes on Astana, Heart Set on LA 2028
The bronze in Japan is not the destination. For Kapil, it’s the starting point of a far more demanding journey.
Under the Boxing Federation of India’s selection criteria, Asian Games medallists become the primary entries in their weight categories for the 2027 World Boxing Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan. That tournament, scheduled for April, will be the first qualifying event for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
The stakes could not be higher. Nor could his focus.
“Rukna nahi hai ab, bas aage dekhna hai,” he said. No stopping now, only forward.
“The Olympics is the ultimate dream. I want to go there, represent my country and win a medal. That is the only thing on my mind right now. I am preparing for the World Championships in April,” he added.
From cotton mattresses in Chakarpur to a bronze medal in Aichi-Nagoya, every step of Kapil Pokhariya’s story has been about improvisation, resilience and a refusal to back down after defeat. The next step takes him to Astana. The one after that, if he lands his punches clean and hard, could carry “Khatima ka Russell” all the way to Los Angeles.
