Iranian Hulk's trainer has admitted the super-heavyweight tried to withdraw from his fight with Kazakh Titan just days before the first bell.
The Iranian star - real name Sajad Gharibi - was defeated in the opening round of his boxing debut against long-term rival Kazakh Titan - real name Djumanov Almat Bakhytovich as part of Wicked N' Bad's white-collar event in Dubai. It became quickly clear that Bakhytovich was much better equipped to win the fight with Gharibi not even fit enough to throw a punch.
And the Iranian's trainer Hamzeh Moradian, who had stepped in to help him shortly before the fight, has admitted he didn't have enough time to help him. "After we met and I realised that Sajad’s agent knows nothing about sports and has signed a contract with this boxing company in Dubai and Sajad is supposed to go and fight," he said in an Instagram video after the embarrassing defeat.
"When we talked, I told him that there is no way Sajad can fight. He said 'help him as much as you can' and I said that he can’t do it. I said that I don’t mean to intervene, but I think it’s better if it’s cancelled. When they tried to cancel it, they realised that they can’t do it, because they had to pay a penalty.
"There are rules anyways and people working in sports know that it’s not possible to cancel such events and he had to attend. So, I agreed to help him. We had so little time that I held the training sessions twice a day in the morning and in the afternoon.
"Even some days I picked him up myself. I tried my best to help him but since we didn’t have enough time to get him ready. I saw him under pressure and anxious. It’s really hard to get in the ring through all that pressure and anxiety."
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Gharibi elected to keep his shirt on for the fight despite posting photos on social media showing a ripped physique. He was quickly left cowering and turned his back on his opponent with the referee halting the bout just seconds in. The fight was stopped with seconds remaining in the first round.
Gharibi has since apologised for his performance, saying: "I hope -again- that you forgive me. I wanted to make you proud but I didn’t predict all this. I hope that people forgive me."
