September 23, 2022
The Iranian Hulk made his boxing debut July 31—and it didn’t go well. It became clear within seconds that he didn’t know the basics of boxing. The referee stopped the fight about two minutes into the first round.
Bizarrely, the Hulk refused to remove his shirt for the fight with his Instagram rival, the Kazakh Titan. For a man who made his reputation by posting topless pictures showing off his impressive physique The Iranian Hulk seemed surprisingly reluctant to display those muscles in public. He insisted on wearing a vest for the fight.
It very quickly became clear that the Iranian Hulk had no idea how to box and didn’t really want to be in the ring.
The Iranian Hulk, Sajad Gharibi, weighed in at 309 lbs for this contest in Dubai with the Kazakh Titan coming in at a mere 205 lbs. The latter came out and immediately fired off a couple of straight punches.
The Iranian Hulk responded with a haymaker that missed the target by miles. The Kazakh Titan then landed the first meaningful punch of the fight, a body shot that immediately caused his opponent to turn his back and run away.
A follow up right glanced off the head of the Iranian Hulk, who clearly wanted to quit and was given an extended break while he drank some water. The fight continued and the Kazakh Titan, Djumanov Almat Bakhytovich, found himself on his back, but that was only caused by a stumble and he jumped back up again.
Once back on his feet, the Kazakh Titan started to tee off on the Iranian Hulk, who responded with a couple of wild haymakers. He turned his back again and was hit with a gentle right hook to the head.
It was enough to knock the Iranian Hulk down and this time the referee called off the contest. It had lasted less than two minutes.
The Iranian Hulk has nearly one million Instagram followers and presumably earned a decent amount of money for this fight. “But the cash came at the expense of his carefully cultivated online image and he will have to rehabilitate his reputation after this shambolic showing,” the website Asian MMA commented.
The Iranian Hulk got a lot of attention in April when he scheduled a fight with Briton Martyn Ford. But Ford pulled out. He said Gharibi didn’t appear to be training seriously or to understand what boxing was all about.
After the fight in Dubai, Ford said, “Honestly, I think he had mental issues. I think he was stuck out there to make some people money. The thing that ended it for me was the crying on TV to his parents and then saying he wants to kill himself.”
Gharibi said, “I have nothing to say, but I am ashamed and I apologize to the Iranian people.”
Gharibi’s Iranian trainer said Gharibi had only two weeks of preparation and “I told him he was not ready to fight.” But the trainer said Gharibi could not get out of the fight without first paying a huge penalty, so he went ahead.
Kayhan London wrote, “Sajad could not throw a decent punch. He fought like a drunk man in a pub brawl. It looked like he had never been in a fight. All the time, he was turning and running away, hoping the ordeal would end as soon as possible.”
Bloody Yellow, a boxing website, said, “Apparently, he’s just some random fat dude that grew to fame through wildly edited social media posts. And, perhaps to no one’s surprise, he also doesn’t know how to fight at all.”
