If you’ve ever been curious to investigate why so many young female “influencers” visit Dubai each year to buy expensive things, stand on expensive yachts, and take an endless number of selfies for social media, just know this: curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it can kill your innocence, too.
Some things, in other words, are best left unknown. Sometimes it is better to see a “holiday” as simply a holiday without learning (a) how the holiday was paid for or (b) how the sausage was made. Sometimes the illusion sold on social media is as much for your own good as theirs.
In the case of boxing’s WBA “Regular” heavyweight title, a similar suspension of disbelief/ignorance is required to avoid throwing up. This has in fact been true of that silly belt for years now and our collective willingness to play along is why it still exists and can present itself as a “world title” in 2025.
The latest man to own the belt is Kubrat Pulev, of course, a once-capable but now-44-year-old Bulgarian whose best days are well and truly behind him. In 2020, Pulev boxed for the proper version of the WBA heavyweight title – in a spirited but unsuccessful effort against Anthony Joshua – so knows the difference between “Super” and “Regular”, even if he is never likely to let on. He won’t let on because for middle-aged Pulev winning the WBA “Regular” belt has provided the dermal filler and BBL his career required, as well as given him the opportunity to dress and pose like a world champion without having to go through the ordeal of beating a world-class fighter for the privilege.
Instead, to rise to “champion” Pulev merely had to overcome Mahmoud Charr, himself a long-time fan – and yes, holder – of the WBA “Regular” belt last December. That fight took place in Sofia, Pulev’s home, and was by every measure a fairytale ending to a long and decent professional career. It had all the hallmarks of a fairytale at least: the shiny things, the triumph of the hero, the happy climax. It also had those fantastical elements every great fairytale needs, plus the reassurance that it is, in the end, just a fairytale. Rest assured, only small children and those of a naïve persuasion would ever take the WBA “Regular” heavyweight title seriously and consider it anything more than regular. Only the fighters themselves would ever attempt to have small children and those of a naïve persuasion believe that what they were watching was world championship boxing.
Plenty have done it, mind you. Before Pulev and Charr, you had Daniel Dubois, you had Trevor Bryan, and you had Lucas Browne. All carried the WBA “Regular” belt for a spell and did all they could to convince both themselves and others that it meant something more than others told them it meant. There was, to them, nothing regular about it at all. In fact, for most who win that belt, it is as close as they will ever come to touching the real gold – call it “Super” or something else – and capturing that feeling. For these fighters, it’s enough just to wear the clothes.
Indeed, where there is a belt, there is a sanctioning fee, and where there is a vacancy for a world champion, there will be a fighter somewhere keen to apply. Pulev, the latest, in many ways fits the bill to a tee. At 44, he is the right age, and his rate of activity is in keeping with what the WBA expects from its “Regular” champions. It’s worth remembering, after all, just how long Mahmoud Charr managed to hold on to his “Regular” belt without actually fighting – three years and two months, if you’re interested – and how old Fres Oquendo was when his fight against Charr in 2018 was scrapped due to Charr failing a performance-enhancing drugs test (he was 45).
All in all, it’s a messy business, this “Regular” heavyweight title business. It’s full of old men – some of whom are dirty, all of whom are desperate – and Love Island-levels of plastic and deceit. Should you get into the business, you will know what to expect. It’s why you come along. As bad as it sounds, you want a taste of that seediness and that unpredictability. You want to slum it for a bit and watch old, dirty blokes have their fun.
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.
See, it’s perfect. In Dubai, among all that plastic and glass, nobody will care to ask too many questions. Nobody will slut-shame Kubrat Pulev or ask him how he got that snazzy, expensive belt he keeps parading on his Instagram. Instead, everybody will just make their money and have a grand old time, accepting that nobody needs to know what any of it really means. Besides, sometimes you’re better off not knowing.
