It was originally scheduled that on Sunday, Zhang Zhilei, the first chinese boxing heavyweight, would play against Croatian star Filip Hrgovic, but the opponent suddenly withdrew from the game, and Zhang Zhilei also had to temporarily change opponents.
On the same day, the current four-tier world boxing champion Mexican superstar Avarez (57-1-2, 39KO) was once again upgraded to 175 pounds to challenge the WBA light heavyweight super boxing king Russian Biver (19-0, 11KO), Zhang Zhilei was played as the vice-captain of the day, his original opponent Helgović was the third in the IBF rankings, and was designated by the IBF as the first candidate for the qualifiers.
But a large number of top boxers would rather give up the potential opportunity to impact the world boxing champion than face it head-on with Helgović, including Cuban "King Kong" Ortiz, former WBO boxing champion Parker and others, and finally the 13th ranked 39-year-old Zhang Zhilei got this opportunity.
If Zhang Zhilei wins this big battle, he will become a mandatory challenger for the title of IBF boxing champion of WBC/IBF/WBO heavyweight boxing king Usik and former triplet Joshua winner, and get the opportunity to challenge the world boxing champion.
In order to fight this big battle, Zhang Zhilei also spared no effort to go all out to train and prepare, and the training fee alone cost 110,000 US dollars, which shows the importance attached to this game.
But it backfired, and yesterday morning Helgović abruptly announced his withdrawal from the game. The reason for his retirement was the sudden death of his father in early April, which prevented him from concentrating on training and preparing for the game, let alone concentrating on the game, and eventually withdrew from the game.
According to the IBF regulations, the two-person match needs to be held later, but Zhang Zhilei does not want to waste such a long time of hard preparation, so Zhang Zhilei's promoter, Eddie Hearn, ceo of the boxing promotion company, is looking for a new opponent for Zhang Zhilei.