AL FUJAYRAH, United Arab Emirates - A hulking black bull named Rocket, whose horns had been filed to sharp points, strutted into the dirt lot.

Nearby, his opponent, an equally massive bull, scraped up clouds of dust with a front hoof and snorted. His name: Satan.

At the judges' signal, the bulls charged, locking horns in a competition that has entertained crowds and given bragging rights to bull owners along the Gulf of Oman for as long as people here can remember.

It is unclear how old the tradition is, though some suspect it started during the Portuguese colonization of the Omani coast in the 16th century. In Arabic, they call it "bull wrestling." Others refer to it as "bull butting" to differentiate it from the bull-versus-matador showdowns in Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.

"It's crazy they would let a man battle a beast," said Nasser Badr Abdulla, a local match organizer. "He could get killed."

Mr. Abdulla said the worst injuries that befell the bulls normally required only a few stitches. "Here it's the bulls that have five-star lives," he said. "They fight, and then we take them back to the farm for the best food."

The bull face-offs in Al Fujayrah are one of the cultural holdovers from the time before this patch of rocks and sand jutting into the Persian Gulf became a country in 1971.

Before then, most people herded camels and sheep in the desert and fished or raised dates and other crops along the coast. The development since has been rapid, as oil wealth and international business have turned Dubai and Abu Dhabi into skyscraper-lined hubs.

But echoes of the past remain. Crowds still pack camel races outside Abu Dhabi, although robots have done the riding since a ban on child jockeys in 2005, and the men of Al Fujayrah still pit bull against bull.

"This one you see here is the strongest one in the ring," said Yazid al-Naimi, 25, pointing at Rocket, his family's prize bull, and raising his eyebrows. "Those horns are his weapons."

Since his family bought the bull two years ago, Rocket had been on the diet and workout schedule of a prizefighter, dining on grass, corn, dates and dried fish and walking 1.5 kilometers a day, sometimes on the beach or in the ocean for extra resistance, Mr. Naimi said. Sometimes, he went swimming.

No prizes are given for winning. "It's all about reputation," Salem Kalbani, Satan's owner, said. "If you win, people will talk about your farm and say it has the strongest bulls."

Also, a bull bought for $20,000 can sell for double after a victory, or half as much after a loss.

On a recent Friday, about 60 bulls were registered, and each would get one fight. Normal matches went on for two minutes before a dozen men in white robes rushed in to pull the bulls apart.

The crowd yelled as Satan and Rocket met, but Rocket suddenly turned and made a run for it, making Satan the winner.

"In the end, they are animals, and you never know what to expect," Mr. Naimi said. "Nobody likes a loser."

The New York Times

(China Daily 06/23/2013 page10)