The chance to take on an established heavyweight champion only comes around so often, and right now Kubrat Pulev is gearing up for one of the biggest fight nights of his career, as he takes on Anthony Joshua at the SSE Arena, Wembley, on December 12th.
As he prepares there must be bitter reminiscences going through his mind of the last time he took on a fighter of similar status and stature. 15th November 2014 was the day Pulev took on then IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in Hamburg, Germany. It was also the night he lost his undefeated record and saw his heavyweight aspirations take a crushing blow.
Suffering defeat at the hands of such a legendary champion is no reason for shame, but it set Pulev back and forced him to doggedly work his way up to this point – where the glimmering dream of holding that IBF heavyweight belt now lies tantalisingly within grasp once again. Joshua is the man who stands in his way this time, and just like six years ago, Pulev faces a date with destiny to try and realise his hopes and expectations at last.
But it’s fair to say that Joshua in 2020 is a fighter with significantly more frailty to his champion status than Klitschko was when Pulev met the Ukrainian in 2014. Back then, Klitschko was on a run of 20 fights without defeat, and few were given a prayer when coming up against his considerable might. As for Joshua, he prepares to take on Pulev with a winning run of one fight backing him up. Much was made of the Englishman’s defeat to Andy Ruiz Jr. in the summer of 2019, and although ‘AJ’ regained his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles by winning the rematch, there is still a degree of vulnerability to the 31-year-old at the moment.
This is the nerve at which Pulev will seek to strike – a mission to provoke the same doubts and insecurities that plagued Joshua on that night at Madison Square Garden, where Ruiz spooked him and brought the walls of his dominance crumbling down from within. While one defeat does not define a champion’s career – Klitschko having lost fights himself – it’s exposed flaws in Joshua’s psyche that other fighters can seek to capitalise upon.
Pulev will arrive in London with little clamour surrounding him, for the Joshua v Pulev odds place the Englishman as the heavy favourite. But that will probably suit the Bulgarian, a fighter who has proven himself adept at rolling with the punches and waiting for his moment. It would be wrong to describe Pulev as a knockout artist in the same terms as Joshua or the likes of Deontay Wilder – of the Bulgarian’s 28 wins, only half have come by way of KO or TKO. But what Pulev does possess is a brutish, tank-like physique, which allows him to absorb the blows before sending them back in his own time.
Whether the strange circumstances of only 1,000 spectators being allowed due to coronavirus restrictions plays into underdog Pulev’s hands or not remains to be seen. In many ways, it feels as if that won’t matter to the Bulgarian, because this is a fresh chance to snatch the titles and accompanying glory that eluded him six years ago in Germany. The task is clear: to put Joshua in that zone of discomfort into which the Englishman fell at Madison Square Garden and never regained a footing. If Pulev can do so, it will herald the crowning moment of one career of toil and graft, and perhaps the disintegration of another.