From North Drift Gym sales to UFC World Champion, Zhang Weili's ten-year fighting road

Facing the imposing Lemos, Zhang Weili achieved crushing in his own defense battle.

Not to mention the victory, the 288-21 hit count set an all-time record for UFC women's competitions. She is China's first and Asia's first UFC World Champion, and today she becomes the first female martial artist in China and Asia to defend her UFC title twice.

Her martial arts road has not been smooth. In her early years, she worked as a card seller in the gym during the day when she drifted north, and trained to play sandbags at night; After becoming famous, she stood at the peak and won the belt, and her two failures also caused her to fall into a deep valley. Of course, there are more pains of training, the pain of dieting, the loneliness of fighting alone...

But no matter what happened, won and lost, she would not have a trace of retreat and weakness. With a lonely courage, Zhang Weili chose to continue to fight.

As she does every time she appears in the BGM song "A Laugh in the Sea", "Who loses and who wins God knows." ”

This time, she was the winner again — her career record was 24-3.

78 seconds, two consecutive defeats

A year after beating Joanna, Zhang began her second title defense.

Facing "Rose the Mob", a girl born in a ghetto who grew up with death, gunshots and mental illness, Zhang Weili lost the game in an unexpected way.

At first, she swept Ross's left leg low several times to gain the upper hand. Soon, the turning point happened. In the 73rd second, Zhang Weili was hit in the head and fell with a high left leg sweep, and Ross then followed the ground and continued to make up punches. At the 78th second, the referee terminated the match.

Zhang Weili lost her belt.

With her confused, puzzled expression, she also lost - 7 years unbeaten, 21 consecutive wins and more importantly, the confidence accumulated over the years.

On the way back to the hotel, she kept asking the coach, "Is this true?" Is that the end of the game? The belt is gone? One day and one night after that, Zhang Weili did not close her eyes, and as soon as she closed her eyes, it was the moment she fell to the ground.

Before returning home, she cut off her long hair and began to grow inches. This moral could not be simpler, Zhang Weili should start from the "head".

After the battle with Ross, she offered to have a rematch — although history has shown that it was not a good choice. In the 30-year history of the UFC, only two people have lost their belts and regained them. However, the official enjoyed it, and scheduled the competition for November six months later.

Zhang Weili no longer pays attention to outside news. She rents a villa in Shunyi, Beijing, where she lives with coaches and colleagues. Her days were like ascetics, no interviews, no socializing, and no spotlights. Get up at half-past six, run for an hour, and train in the gym for three hours. Take a lunch break at noon, train for another two hours in the afternoon, and rest before 10 p.m.

It seems calm. But the strong desire for revenge in my heart, as well as the unwillingness to lose the game, will find her from time to time and make her breathless, "I always dreamed of playing with her, and I broke her arm." ”

The rematch soon began.

In the first three rounds, Zhang Weili had the upper hand. In the final two rounds, her strength declined, and Ross took the initiative. But in a game of five or five situations, no one dares to be sure that they are the final winner. In the end, the referee gave the result - Ross's hand was raised.

This time, Zhang Weili looked calm.

Compared to the first time, she has begun to accept the "loss" thing. More importantly, the two losses against Ross made her more aware of the UFC as a tournament — in a way, "losing" is richer and deeper than "winning."

She began to replay, drinking less water is not enough, recovery is not good, the team does not have tacit understanding... The devil is in the details. "A lot of people think I've lost two games and think maybe my career is short, it's not too young, it's time to end, but from that point on, I decided that I was just improving and starting to mature."

I'm back

“I come back！”

After 567 days, in Madison, New York, she won the game with the tactics that her opponent Carla was best at. When the belt, which symbolizes the UFC Women's Strawweight World Championship, was restored, Zhang Weili shouted into the microphone.

This time, instead of booing, the audience called her name: "Magnum, Zhang Weili!" "Magnum" is her nickname - it is a semi-automatic pistol, beautiful and powerful, Zhang Weili likes to make a gun comparison action every time she plays.

She raised her hand and put it in front of her face, comparing it to a round heart. This belt is unusual for her: "There are many people who fall from the top and can't go back, but I come back." ”

Zhang Weili originally thought that the five-game battle with Joanna, won by disagreement decision, and was known as the "best women's duel in history", was the toughest match of her career, but later, the consecutive losses to Ross and the days of difficult walking in dark moments made her understand what real "adversity" is.

In fact, as Zhang Weili's greatest opponent, Joanna, who defended her belt 5 times, deserves Zhang Weili's respect. defeating Joanna to defend the belt, she became famous; After defeating Joanna in the rematch, the opponent retired, and Zhang Weili won the right to challenge Carla, which led to the story of "I'm back".

In her first victory over Joanna and defending her title in the women's strawweight division, Zhang Weili and her opponent completed 351 effective blows, ranking third all-time.

After the game, both people with blue noses and swollen faces were sent to the hospital. The previous atmosphere of saber rattling has long disappeared, and although the flesh hits each other on the field, there is mutual respect in the heart. Crying in pain, Joanna has been trying to get back the belt she lost – losing her sixth title defense, and for more than 800 days after that, she has been trying unsuccessfully.

But in the ward, she was full of warmth for Zhang Weili from seniors to juniors, "Continue to defend your title, I will watch you, but it will be more and more difficult later." Also lying there, Zhang Weili was so moved that she almost shed tears, "I will protect this belt well." Therefore, these 567 days of sinking to the bottom of the valley is not another replica of Joanna by Zhang Weili - how can you reap brilliant success without experiencing painful failure?

Zhang Weili has her own understanding of why she is so obsessed with returning to the top.

"If the aura of champion is gone, no one is afraid of you. Once you lose this aura, everyone says, I can hit her too. ”

Drifting North Past

This "halo" is even more difficult for a child from an ordinary family like Zhang Weili.

Zhang Weili was born in Handan, Hebei Province in 1990 to ordinary coal workers. When she was a child, she was a "tomboy", and her biggest dream was to be a woman and wanted to learn the light skill of flying off walls. Since she was 6 years old, she has been learning martial arts routines from the village martial arts master. The houses in the village are not tall and close to each other, so Zhang Weili often runs between the roofs.

When she was 12 years old, her parents chose a martial arts school for her.

This was the starting point for her to become a champion. Although life is very difficult, fights after conflict are commonplace. But Zhang Weili persevered like this. After that, she won the Hebei Provincial Sanda Championship and entered the provincial sanda team. After that, she was injured at the age of 17. This is a very sensitive age for rural girls, and most of their peers' choice is to marry. Zhang Weili was also confused, but her mother unexpectedly gave her greater support - you go to Beijing to see.

Many years later, in our introduction on the Internet, we can still see the traces of Zhang Weili's difficult years.

In Beipiao, she has done a lot of odd jobs - working as a kindergarten teacher, a hotel security guard and front desk, a supermarket cash register... But she felt that "it's boring." In 2010, when 19-year-old Zhang Weili applied for a job at a fitness gym and saw the ring in the stadium and the sandbags that were one person tall, she stopped and asked, "Can I practice here when there is no one?" The manager's kind response also made her gladly accept this job of 1,200 yuan a month, including food. She usually works as a coach and sells cards, and after work in the evening, she exercises on the treadmill that has closed the door and beats sandbags.

The job was close to the ring, closer to her dream. From childhood to adulthood, the irrepressible desire to fight in my bones will be here and get an outlet for release.

Here the gears of her destiny begin to turn. She met MMA player Wu Haotian, who was the first noble person in her life. Introduced by him, Zhang Weili met Bole Cai Xuejun again, and he trained Zhang Weili to become a champion.

In 2013, the first female champion in UFC history was born: Ronda Rossi. Zhang Weili was also fascinated by her. Like countless girls, she knew she could fight like a boy. She quit her gym job, whose salary had increased by more than 20 times by then, and played boxing full-time.

From signing Kunlun in 2015 to become a professional MMA boxer, to signing with the world's top MMA UFC in 2018, to 2019 knockout former champion Andrade winning the first UFC strawweight belt in China and even Asia, to defeating challenger Joanna in 2020 and successfully defending the title...

Someone once advised her that girls should not do an easy job, but "fight and kill". Zhang Weili only replied with two words, "like". For so many years, she maintained this "hunger and thirst", came out of a small place, step by step, and finally came to the big stage.

In the future, she also wants to continue to work hard.

Epilogue:

There is a quote in the movie "Million Dollar Baby", "If boxing has a knack, then that trick is to keep fighting, to go beyond the limits of endurance, beyond broken ribs, cracked kidneys and detached retinas." ”

For those rounds on the field, for so many years, Zhang Weili was like a clockwork fighting machine, training hard day by day, polishing herself, just so that she could stand straight in the octagonal cage and have the last laugh. With her actions, she declared to everyone that girls should not be limited to tenderness, but can also show people with a brave and resilient side.

There must be ups and downs in between. Defeating Andrade to take the belt in just 42 seconds; Losing to Ross to lose the belt, it took only 78 seconds. Many times, in the clash of electric flint on the field, success or failure is instantaneous, and other hard work and difficulties behind it are easily erased.

But now Zhang Weili is more and more comfortable with gains and losses. She is not afraid of failure, but she is afraid that she will stop early on the way to chase her dreams.

"When you become a champion, there must be a day when you come down. But, go up and be pretty, come down pretty, and that's it. ”

Today, facing Lemos, she has once again fulfilled her promise. If you can, let China "Li" amount and fly for a while.