The Iranian Hulk was ‘too shy’ to take part in public boxing classes ahead of his clash with Kazakh Titan, his coach has revealed.
Hulk, whose real name is Sajad Gharibi, recently fought Kazakh Titan, real name Djumanov Almat Bakhytovich, at the Wicked N'Bad show but the fight was stopped in the first round.
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It was clear from the start that the Hulk was out of his depth, turning away from punches and seemingly reluctant to even throw a jab.
Following the match, the Iranian apologised for his performance, telling his fans: “I have nothing to say but I am ashamed and I apologise to the Iranian people."
Now, the Hulk’s trainer Hamzeh Moradian has said the Internet celebrity was ‘too shy’ to take part in public boxing lessons - so he had to seek out a private gym to offer him private lessons.
He also said he had initially said there was ‘no way’ the Hulk could fight.
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Moradian said: "He was way too shy to come to my public classes and we had to find a gym or somewhere so he could be by himself and be trained until he was good enough.
"After we met and I realised that Sajad’s agent knows nothing about sports and does it only as a side business and does not have any knowledge about sports.
"He had signed a contract with this boxing company in Dubai and Sajad is supposed to go and fight.
"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."
His coach had previously said that they had just ‘two weeks’ to prepare for the fight.
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Speaking after his fighter’s loss, he explained: 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.
"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."
Claire Reid