According to the latest media news, Zhang Zhilei (23-0-1, 18KO), the super heavyweight silver medalist of the 2008 Olympic Games, changed his opponent on May 8 (this Sunday). Originally, Zhang Zhilei was going to play an IBF heavyweight boxing championship knockout match with Croatian heavyweight rookie Philip Helgović (14-0, 12KO) as the vice-home match before the main match of Avarez (57-1-2, 39KO), but Helgović was not in the mood to prepare for the game because his father had just died in early April, and told the promoter two days ago that he would not play.
Zhang Zhilei told boxing fans on Douyin that although he understood Helgovich's mood, it was a bit unethical to give up the game until a week before the match. In particular, Zhang Zhilei spent $110,000 to prepare for this big war. He and Helgović's honorarium is also 260,000 US dollars, has spent nearly half of the honorarium, the key is that the game is not successful now, the money has not arrived, but also posted.
Zhang Zhilei's opponent this time is Christopher Lovejoy (20-1, 20KO) from the United States. Lovejoy is 38 years old, with a professional record of 20 wins and 1 loss, 20 games KO opponents, the record numbers look good, especially the KO rate is amazing, but the quality of the game is low, and only two opponents are more than one. It is now ranked 357th in the BOXREC-Heavyweight class overall. Lovejoy played 2 matches in 2021 and was ko in February last year by the German "diamond boy" Char (32-4, 18KO) who had not played for nearly 4 years. Lovejoy is 1.96 meters tall and is estimated to have stood in front of Zhang Zhilei for less than 3 rounds on Sunday.