Martyn Ford has accused upcoming opponent Sajad Gharibi of photoshopping his pictures ahead of next month’s showdown.
The 39-year-old actor — dubbed the “World’s Scariest Man” — pits his wits against the Iranian Hulk at The O2 Arena in London on April 30, The Sun reports.
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Both men have been training intensely for their super-heavyweight dust-up, with the pair coming to blows when they faced off for the first time in Dubai.
Weightlifter Gharibi, who has declared Ford will leave on a stretcher, supposedly weighs around 178kg.
But Brit Ford, who is looking in incredible shape for the fight, is convinced his rival has been editing his pictures to make him seem bigger than he actually is.
Commenting on his face off with Gharibi, he told Daily Star Sport: “He was not what I expected.
“I think he’s just fooled the world with photoshop, if I’m honest. Seeing him in real life is not as impressive as seeing him in pictures.
“So disheartening I think is the word. He was tiny. He didn’t look anything like he had made out. That was the first time I’d seen him in real life.
“He was big, probably bigger than 114kg, but he wasn’t scary big. He just felt like a big kid that didn’t really train if I’m being honest. He was supposed to be twice my size.”
“I asked him in Dubai, are you sure you want this fight? Because I’m going in to fight.
“If you’re sure you want to fight, I want to fight someone who wants to fight because I’ve not trained and sacrificed six months of my life to go in and just for you to not want to be there.
“You need to make sure you want to fight. Neither of us are professional but I’ve taken this deadly seriously.”
The Iranian Hulk recently broke down in tears on live TV after revealing his parents have disowned him following his Dubai bust-up with Ford.
Gharibi, 30, was pushed to the ground and in turn lost his relationship with his parents when he came back to Iran.
“I cannot call my family; when I returned I didn’t go to my family,” he remarked.
“I can’t talk to my father and my mother, when I spoke to her, said: ‘The person in this video that I saw was not my son, my son is way stronger than this’.
“It hurts my heart when I can’t talk to my family. I have lost my pride and I am destroyed. How can I explain?
“They deceived me and I fell to the ground. My family said that you will go there and finish him. They expected the other way around.
“How can I sleep or get any rest? I personally feel very bad and I cannot sleep but I am now taking sleeping pills.
“When a mum says that to her child, how can it be tolerated? There is a lot of pressure, if I got paid even one dollar to do that I can’t continue.”
This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission
