This time they will have their fun in the desert – Dubai, to be exact. That’s where Kubrat Pulev will defend the belt against Russia’s Murat Gassiev on Friday and, in truth, there can be no better place for the business of WBA “Regular” heavyweight boxing to find its home. If we thought a decrepit casino in Miami ticked every box when Dubois and Bryan boxed there for the belt in 2022, we were wrong. This is even better. This brings the WBA “Regular” heavyweight title to the land of plastic, shiny things and gives it the opportunity to dazzle in a way only Dubai really can. Better yet, it allows the fight to seduce the kind of people only a place like Dubai can seduce. Which is to say, on Friday night, the superficial meets the superficial; the soulless meets the soulless; stuff meets stuff. It’s not so much the blind leading the blind as the fake leading the fake, but the effect, make no mistake, is still the same. It all goes down at the Duty Free Tennis Stadium – where else? – and everybody involved, thanks to the WBA’s great dereliction of duty in regard to their titles, will again rally against truth and common sense.
