Andrew Tate's former kick-boxing rival Ibrahim El Boustati believes the controversial star has faked his "alpha male" persona in order to become famous.
The Dutch kickboxer beat Tate within minutes of their world title meeting in 2016, landing a number of heavy shots before the Brit complained of an eye injury and told the referee to stop the bout. Tate would go on compete in three further kickboxing matches in Romania, and a comeback fight in 2020, but for all intents and purposes was retired by El Boustati at world level.
But six years later, El Boustati believes Tate couldn't have been telling the truth about the severity of his eye injury after emerging as a potential opponent for Jake Paul. He argues either Tate was lying in 2016 about his detached retina, or that he would be unable to take a high-level boxing match against someone like Paul with such lingering issues.
Heading into the bout, Tate had said in pre-fight interviews he was at his "physical peak as a male," but was clutching his eye early in the contest. He is now potentially looking at a fight with one of Jake or Logan Paul, while El Boustati is about to transition into MMA at the age of 27, under the renowned management of Abraham and Malki Kawa.
"I was the 85kg champion and he was the 90kg champion," El Boustati explained to Mirror Fighting, telling of how Tate blocked him on social media immediately afterwards. "I believe I made him lie about the eye. Against me, he was alright, he was the Andrew Tate he wanted to be, he didn't have something on his eye and he was actually very motivated to fight me.
"He revealed the real Andrew Tate inside the ring and outside the ring. Me personally, I'm a very thankful person, I'm a very relaxed type of guy, I'm not the guy who shows off his speed boats and cars and stuff like that, so I wanted to let people realise that his behaviour is all an act.
"The most painful thing for him was that he lost his belt, the only thing he ever loved. He came out of retirement for me to defend the belt, he lost it in the first round to a left hook in the head, the video is out there and directly after that he was defending himself saying he already had an injury on his eye.
"But when I look back, it was all a reason to protect himself for the time he's living in now so people couldn't say he's not the champion he claims to be. He blocked me on Instagram immediately, so I messaged his brother Tristan to offer a rematch and he also blocked me, so they just won't let me in their head or something.
"I heard after that he fought three times in Romania against three, like, douchebag people. He was having all these problems with his eye, but after my fight he goes straight to Romania and fights three nobodies to be able to pump up his record for wikipedia so people don't think he's a nobody.
"When I heard he was fighting Jake Paul that's when I decided I need to bring this up. You can't ride a Bugatti with a broken eye, you can't fight three fights in Romania after me with a broken eye, come on!
"Jake is a very very smart person, he knows what he's doing and how to make his career very big. That's why it's the moment to fight Andrew and I give them both credit because it's a very smart move, they both have unbelievable followings behind them, but don't see this fight as a boxing match, see it as an influencers match."
Tate had just appeared on Big Brother in the UK when he returned to kickboxing to fight El Boustati. But his true fame wasn't to arrive until earlier this year, when his following ballooned from a niche corner of the internet to a point where his videos about self-improvement, masculinity and women are almost unavoidable.
But El Boustati believes that having spent time with both Andrew and his brother Tristan, who has grown to similar fame in his own right, promoting their fight that he is faking his persona. As a father to a young daughter, he is not keen on some of the Tates' more outrageous views on women, and believes he will change his tune if he has kids of his own.
"He is all about the shine, and he needs attention," El Boustati continued. "Like Big Brother, if you're a real 'Top G' you're not going to be crying with nerdy people on the Big Brother show, or beating some woman up, if you're really a man, beat me up but he isn't so I can't explain how I feel now.
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"He is lying to a lot of people, he's not the person he says he is. I know him very well, Andrew and his brother Tristan, I talked with them all week before the fight doing interviews and he's a very kind person, back then Tristan was already the quiet one because Andrew was at the front and Tristan was a bit like his shadow.
"I have a brother too, he's my trainer, so it was two-against-two and the Boustati brothers won and the Tate brothers ran off to Romania. From there I didn't know what they did with their career but it wasn't fighting!
"Watch any of the interviews before the fight, he was saying he was impressed by me and all of this stuff, he hasn't said one of those alpha male sentences against me. He hasn't done one thing he says in his alpha male act towards me, now he's doing all this talking now.
"Don't call yourself an alpha male if you're a scared person, an alpha male is someone who's the man of men. If you're scared of any man, flesh and blood, then you are not an alpha male."
However, despite the bad blood between them, El Boustati admits he is a fan of some of the things Tate says in his videos. The former fighter has been viewed over 11billion times online, and has become one of the most searched out people in the world.
"I respect his struggle, his work ethic, what he's doing online," El Boustati continued. "He says what needs to be said, I don't stand behind everything but some things he says are good. I just saw his videos about a month ago for the first time, I didn't know he blew up or something.
"All of a sudden I'm hearing Andrew Tate this, Andrew Tate that, but I don't have Tik Tok and he's blocked me off Instagram. I didn't know he was doing so well and I saw a video of him claiming he's a champion of this, a champion of that but one thing is clear now, I still have a belt, I still have his belt and he never came back for it."
