Boxers exchanging their last pre-fight barbs during those obligatory face-to-face weigh-in pictures is nothing new.

But it’s fair to say that Anthony Joshua and Kubrat Pulev’s lengthy verbal tiff after they’d both hit the scales gave Mathroom’s Eddie Hearn those warm tingly feelings, when he knows he can sell a product to market.

Pulev weighed in at 239.7lbs.

But even before Joshua could weigh in the Bulgarian said something that clearly irked the 2012 Olympic gold medallist.

Joshua, disregarding Covid protocols, lowered his mask to let Pulev know exactly what he was thinking.

Joshua then went about his business, coming in at 240.8lbs, 3lbs more than he weighed when gaining revenge over Andy Ruiz in Saudi Arabia a year ago.

It was when Joshua stepped off the scales that the jaw-jacking went into overdrive.

The IBF, WBA, IBO and WBO champion was making his point with his finger, vigorously for someone usually so stoic, while Pulev – clearly thriving off the reaction – kept going and kept trying to press the same buttons.

Robert Smith, general secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, tried to steer Joshua away but Pulev kept heckling and by the time the champion made his way to the Sky interview he was fuming.

He then set about playing it down but appeared to do so through gritted teeth.

“That’s just how we are,” said Joshua. “You come talking a lot of rubbish… I don’t want to swear on TV but he spoke a lot of rubbish. Just back yourself, really. I would have just clapped him in his jaw there and then, but I’ve got to do it tomorrow.”

When asked by Sky’s Andy Scott what he told 39-year-old Pulev, he replied: “I don’t really want to repeat that on live TV.”

Joshua, aged 31, then revealed that he had sparred on Thursday and said he was planning on a training session on the eve of the fight.

Then, asked whether there was more fire in the belly after that prickly on-stage encounter, Joshua said: “I know what he’s like. I’ve studied him. He thinks he’s a warrior but I said don’t let the guys who you’ve fought gas you up, you’re in against a real one now.”

Of course, there are probably plenty who will say it was staged, to boost box office sales and all the usual stuff. The photos went viral and the exchange did what it was supposed to do and got people talking.

It’s a typical boxing cliché, one of which you often hear on fight week. It was similar earlier in the week when boxing writers were noting how Pulev appeared to be in great shape?

Really? Has it come to this? That we are surprised that he has bothered to train for the biggest night of his professional career? And at what point did body-type win fights? When blubbery Andy Ruiz separated Joshua from his senses in New York in 2018? When Tyson Fury, without an abdominal muscle in site, laid waste to Deontay Wilder?

There’s a misconception in boxing that physiques win fights and that a boxer’s condition can be garnered by the sinewy fibres in an athlete’s biceps. If that was the case, Mr Universe would be the heavyweight champion of the world!

But there are some who have been around the sport who have been impressed more by a fighter’s demeanour than his stature.

I remember promoter Mick Hennessy always telling me how he knew he had hard fights incoming against Timothy Bradley and Jean Pascal when he promoted Junior Witter and Carl Froch respectively because they had a calm and incisive manner about them. It wasn’t to do with eight-packs or deltoids.

Regardless of how Pulev looks, more stock should be placed in the fact that he’s gone 10 rounds or further eight times in his career.

He might not be a body-beautiful but he’s clearly functionally fit to fight.

Joshua is, of course, carved from stone and he’s been shredded since he burst into the public’s consciousness on his Olympic run.

But as Frank Bruno could attest to, big muscles and a maniacal fitness regime doesn’t turn you into a 12-round fighter. Conversely, Fury is still not chiselled but seems to have 12 rounds in him at a canter.

Once the bell goes, your body-type is irrelevant and so are all the cliches you hear about, whether it’s ‘fake beef’, face-to-face weigh in pictures or comments about someone looking in great condition after devoting a good portion of their life to their craft.

What is not cliched is what the anticipation will be like inside Wembley with just 1,000 fans. Sure, they will be pro-Joshua but they will be spread around a vast building trying to make their voices heard.

It’s a highly unusual situation, still, boxing in the Covid era, but of all the cliches you could choose to use the main event in Wembley, the first heavyweight title fight since emerging from a global lockdown, will provide a very different atmosphere.