The Great Chinese Hope: Is Zou the Next Boxing Phenom?

[Time]

Zou Shiming, 31, is arguably the most popular boxer in the world that no one has heard of in the Western hemisphere. Just a couple weeks ago the Chinese fighter was working out in the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, preparing, in anonymity, for his fight, this coming Saturday in Macao. Yet, while an estimated 18 million United States sports fans will watch the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four, it's a good bet that more people in the world will be talking about Zou. Even in the tight-knit boxing world, no oneseemed to know much about the 5'5″ athlete who will make his professional fighting debut in the non-title fight this weekend. He has quick feet, excellent defensive skills, has won three world amateur championships, and two consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2008 and 2012. But the dominating fact is that he is from the People's Republic of China, where he is tremendously popular. And that popularity is what gives Zou the potential to change the economics of professional boxing—in a big way. (SPECIAL: Zou Shiming – 100 Olympic Athletes to Watch in Beijing 2008) All that, however, doesn't matter much in Wild Card, the legendary strip mall gym that prides itself on training professional world title holders. In his first week training the fighter, Freddie Roach, his American trainer, had to teach the newly-minted pro how to punchproperly (Zou kept curling his wrists) and how to hit a speed bag, basic skills that any American fighter masters as a pre-teen. Roach started tightly wrapping Zou's hands to prevent injury and to force him to straighten his wrists. China has very little history in western style boxing, and its trainers are not always as sophisticated as their Western counterparts. He will be facing Mexican flyweight Eleazar Valenzuela, who has a five fight record, winning two by knockout, losing one by knockout and drawing twice. Mao Zedong's government banned boxing for decades because it was too Western, but in the mid-1980s Chinese authorities realized that the sport's 11 weight classes would

Via: TIME GlobalSpin