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Andrew Tate vs Ibrahim El Boustati headlines Enfusion Live 44 tomorrow in The Hague, Netherlands in what will be a clash between two different weight class champions. Tate makes his long awaited return to kickboxing after two years away from the sport and defends his 90kg title against, “The Beast” who, has defeated all before him as the 85kg champion and remains undefeated in all of his 44 professional fights.

Although El Boustati recently defended the 85kg Enfusion title against Filip Verlinden at Enfusion Live 41, his victory was overshadowed in controversy when an independent body of officials (whose authority was not recognised by Enfusion after the event), would reverse the decision in favour of Verlinden a month after their fight in Belgium. The whole saga in the build up to his fight with Tate has left a sour taste in El Boustati’s mouth as he expressed.

“On September 17th I was the winner in the ring. Verlinden’s team, his father, also an official of the Belgium judges; he thought the decision wasn’t right, he appealed it and a month later I hear, they turn the win into a loss for me and they give the win to Verlinden, the Belgium judges. I was surprised. It’s all strange, I wanted to appeal because they appealed, so I want to appeal as well but they declined it. I ask for the results [of the finding] and they don’t want to give it. It’s all played under the table.”

Enfusion Live 44
Enfusion Live 44 – Image: Fightsense

“Its all speaks for itself, the father is the one who appealed it also the part of the Belgium judges. One plus one is two. The whole story has become more political than the sport. It doesn’t make the sport better. They need to shame.”

“You can’t turn a win into a loss a month later. If you do it with a football match ok, the Belgiums are famous for that. You can’t do match fixing with the kickboxing match.”

“Cobra Tate” is the taller of the two champions, standing at 6ft 3inches whereas El Boustati is 6ft 1” in height which, is similar difference to the height difference experienced by Ibrahim in his last fight with Verlinden. However, both Verlinden and Tate have different fighting styles which, El Boustati is very aware of come tomorrow and has his own way of overcoming taller and longer limbed opponents.

“I have long arms, long legs, my body is short. I’m lucky with my body. I’m sparing withy sparring partner at the gym, Younis [Rahmoune], he’s 2metres. I’m always the shorter one. I don’t let them get in the fight because they’re going to fight at distance with me. So I’m always the one who making the fight and upshot it forward. Get them into the ropes. Always making fireworks in the ring.”

“Two different types of fighting style, you know. Tate is a very unorthodox fighter. He does very strange things and Verlinden is a very old stool fighter. He just gives left, right and the low kick and moves well. If they ever matched up against each other it would be a great fight.”

Enfusion Live 44 is available pay per view (PPV) to stream online via enfusoinlive.com and the main card is listed below:

Enfusion Live 44 – Main event fight card:

Andrew Tate vs Ibrahim El Boustati – 90kg title defence for Tate

Vladimir Tok vs Higham Achalhi – heavyweight,+95kg

Aziz Kallah vs Marcel Verhaar – 72.5kg

Yassin Bartar vs Redouan Laarkoubi – 72.5kg

Bilal Kasroui vs William Diender – 70kg

Patrick Van Rees vs Reda Zaidi – 72.5kg

Fade Basrir vs Sann Strubbelig – Women’s, 54kg