DUBAI – A picture-perfect left hook from Murat Gassiev put Kubrat Pulev down for the count and saw a minor heavyweight belt change hands on United Arab Emirates soil for the first time.
The story of the WBA regular heavyweight title has been well told.
Its list of champions doesn’t read like a Murderers Row, and certainly not like a sample of Hall of Famers.
But it means something to the fighters who contest it and to those who build their shows, like tonight’s IBA Pro Fight Night 13, around it.
Although the world recognizes Oleksandr Usyk as the clear top big man in the world (who also happens to hold the main WBA title, as well as the IBF and WBC belts), the WBA’s regular belt was being fought for here by a 44-year-old champion and a challenger who used to box at cruiserweight and who had lost his biggest fight since moving up some five years ago.
Gassiev’s two losses had come to southpaws in Usyk, who beat him soundly to unify belts at 200lbs, and Sweden’s Otto Wallin in a closer tussle.
Pulev’s defeats – to Wladimir Klitschko, Anthony Joshua and Derek Chisora – had been in 2014, 2022, and 2022 respectively. He’d won his last three, including claiming this belt against Mahmoud Charr in Bulgaria a year ago. Charr, who lives in Dubai, was ringside tonight.
It was a Gassiev thunderbolt, a clean left hook, that accounted for Pulev’s fourth defeat and closed the show so emphatically here.
The opening round was timid. Pulev was trying to make room for his right hand, to both the head and body, as the action got underway just past midnight local time.
Pulev worked behind his jab in the second and Gassiev tried to slip and get inside the tall Bulgarian.
The crowd in the Duty Free Tennis Stadium was split. Although Gassiev earned plenty of cheers, Pulev brought a number of flag-waving supporters from Bulgaria. Both fanbases, clearly invested, obviously couldn’t care less about the lineage of the WBA belt on offer.
In the third round, Pulev fired over a heavy right but Gassiev, hands high, took it on the gloves and soon after replied by stuffing a short right under Pulev’s elbow and into his side. It was a shot Gassiev started to look for, sometimes adding a short right to the hook afterwards in the hope that Pulev’s hands would drop to protect his ribs.
Pulev opened the fifth more aggressively, exploring opportunities with his left while trying to throw rights in behind. Gassiev tried to keep him off by letting an overhand right go and the action began to heat up.
But Pulev, who had not stopped an opponent since he defeated Bogdan Dinu in seven in 2019, didn’t have the firepower to slow Gassiev and, in the next, Gassiev landed the shot to dramatically close the show. He followed in a short left with a left hook and Pulev crashed heavily onto his back, his head bouncing off the canvas.
The crowd gasped. Pulev didn’t know what had hit him. He rolled onto all fours with a knowing smile and the referee waved it off before he could even really try to get back to his feet.
The veteran from Sofia, Bulgaria, was stopped after 50 seconds of the sixth and Pulev dropped to 32-4 (14 KOs).
Gassiev, 12 years younger at 32, is now 33-2 (26 KOs).
Youngster and WBA No. 1 Moses Itauma could press his claim to challenge for that title in the new year but the gifted southpaw must first get by American gatekeeper Jermaine Franklin in Manchester, England, in January.
