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Sajad Gharibi, more popularly known as the 'Iranian Hulk', has finally made his boxing debut, albeit in a very forgettable fashion.
The 'Iranian Hulk' was embarrassingly stopped in the first round of his boxing fight against Djumanov Almat Bakhytovich, aka the 'Kazakh Titan'. Throughout the fight, Gharibi showed a lack of boxing skills as he was dropped within two minutes of the main event of Wicked N'Bad's white-collar boxing show in Dubai.
Aside from his novice performance, what baffled fans more is that the Iranian's physique certainly did not match up to his impressive photos that have gone viral on social media.
Although he wore a top during the fight, this was not enough to cover his true body build.
There have long been accusations that the images posted by the 30-year-old, specifically on his Instagram account, do not represent his true physique and are heavily doctored and photoshopped. His performance in his boxing debut also did not help his cause as his lousy display further fanned those accusations.
Iranian Hulk apologizes to his countrymen after boxing defeat
The 'Iranian Hulk' has apologized to his compatriots shortly after being dominated in his boxing debut. Sajad Gharibi was quoted as saying in a report by The Mirror:
"I have nothing to say but I am ashamed and I apologize to the Iranian people."
Gharibi’s coach also explained the heavyweight's sluggish performance, claiming he only had two weeks to train.
"Thank you for your good and bad messages. I just wanted to give a brief explanation about the fight. The fight was set before Sajad came to me and he signed the contract. There was no way to cancel it unless he paid a big fine for the cancellation.”
He went on to say:
"We had a bad situation. Sajad came to Tehran for his training [but] we had a financial problem, the sponsor didn't keep their word. In short, Sajad trained with me for only two weeks and I told him he was not ready to fight. But I had to be with him because he had to fight and somebody had to coach him.”
