The most beatable woman in China, but so warm

Author | South wind window reporter Ling Chuan'er

In Boston, the closest major port city to Europe, TD North Shore Garden Arena is a legendary landmark in the history of North American sports, both as the base of the NBA's Boston Celtics Green Army and as the home of the National Hockey League Boston Bruins in the Devils. In the past, away teams from any sport have been under extraordinary pressure to play here.

On the morning of August 20 this year, when Zhang Weili stepped into the historic arena for the first time on behalf of all UFC fighting forces, the sky above it was filled with red-and-yellow lights that Chinese loved.

Zhang Weili's background music is still selected as the fixed song "A Laugh in the Sea". This well-known martial arts song is enough to make UFC opponents shudder when they watch videos studying her matches.

"The sky laughs, there are tides in the world, and who loses and who wins is known by heaven." When Zhang Weili, dressed in a black coat, met the eyes of the stadium audience, the cheers of the scene sounded like a tsunami. People have sent heartfelt recognition and love for this top fighter.

Zhang Weili at UFC 292 2023 / Visual China

At this moment, the North Shore Garden Arena is undoubtedly the veritable home of UFC women's strawweight champion Zhang Weili.

Standing opposite her, Amanda Lemos, whose bumpy and tortuous struggle experience, is also worth writing about in a movie. This is a late bloomer from northeastern Brazil, in order to stand in this ring, she used to work part-time while boxing, and also suffered a fracture of the spine bone due to an accident when driving at high speed while picking up passengers. In the past, she was known for her sharp striking ability, and her style of competition was quick and decisive, and no one doubted before the race that this former motorcycle driver would fight Zhang Weili to the last ounce of strength.

After the fists touched lightly, a fierce fight began as scheduled. The Brazilian is tenacious and still did not choose to give up after being brought to the ground by Zhang Weili and the situation was one-sided. She lasted for five rounds, but under Zhang Weili's heavy punches, Leimos could only barely parry - 288 to 21, which is the total number of matches between Zhang Weili and her opponent. After 25 minutes of matching, Zhang Weili won by a landslide and continued to bring her belt back to China.

This is Zhang Weili. Legends are forged. Two years ago, in the face of Polish female fighter Joanna's unwarranted stigmatization of China, she never talked about trash and hit both the other party and herself in the hospital with a stormy offensive.

After winning respect, she also shows humility and tenderness, and after Joanna cried for a few hours, she couldn't bear it and took the initiative to comfort her and encourage her to play well.

Among the domineering UFC fighters, Zhang Weili is more like a "humble warrior" from the East.

Just like Bruce Lee's famous phrase "Be water, my friend", Zhang Weili implements a martial arts philosophy like water in the bloody and cruel octagon cage with a strong and soft attitude.

This is also Zhang Weili.

In the octagon, she is holding up the tide of all ships.

01

From security to sales

Compared to seemingly similar confrontation sports such as boxing and kickboxing, mixed martial arts (MMA) rules are more open, and athletes can both stand and attack, throw each other, and be allowed to grapple on the ground in actual combat – hear about the fighting techniques that the sport contains: Muay Thai, judo, taekwondo, sanda, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu... People can see all kinds of fighting arts at home and abroad in film and television works, and they can find shadows in MMA, so it puts forward higher requirements for the physical fitness and technical tactics of the players. For a long time, mixed martial arts, which has a higher threshold for competition, has a relatively weak sports base in China, and a world-class "all-round" combat fighter can not be found in this land.

As the largest and highest-level event in the world of mixed martial arts, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which originated in the United States, is undoubtedly the dream stage for top fighters to pursue the highest honors. In China, almost all the records set by UFC fighters were written by Zhang Weili alone: the first person to enter the top fifteen of the UFC, the first person to enter the top ten of the UFC, and the first UFC champion in China and even Asia.

The Hollywood classic "Million Dollar Baby", released in 2005, is like Zhang Weili's screen interpretation before becoming famous.

"Million Dollar Baby" stills

Out of love for martial arts, Zhang Weili, born in Handan in 1989, learned martial arts from a young age and won the sanda championship in Hebei. But unscientific training caused her to suffer injuries at a young age and had to retire at the age of 17. She chose to drift north. During this period, Zhang Weili worked as a kindergarten teacher, hotel front desk, security guard and bodyguard. After some wandering, what really settled her down for a long time was a half-man sand bag in the gym ring. At that time, Zhang Weili, who came to apply, stared at it closely, did not ask about the salary, but asked the manager: "Can I practice when there is no one?" ”

She received a positive answer. The gym closes at 90 o'clock every night, and for the rest of the night, it becomes Zhang Weili after work, returning to the personal world of pure happiness. She put on her headphones to run, picked up her sandbags, and the only thing in the field was her rapid breathing and the increasingly dull sound of hitting.

When she was selling gyms, Zhang Weili's love for sports had spilled out of her body, which actually affected the people around her in the workplace. An annual card of 880 yuan, Zhang Weili can open a card contract of more than 200,000 yuan a month, and in the front desk position of the gym in Beijing, her monthly income can get 20,000 yuan - Zhang Weili, who is a sanda athlete, is not a person who is naturally good at persuading others with eloquence. Becoming the champion of the gym, she reflected on herself, relying on her passion for fitness fighting and sincere love from the bottom of her heart to infect the people on the other side.

Zhang Weili was once impressed by such a couple: after his wife became pregnant, her husband took advantage of his free time to walk on the street, and when he entered the gym, he was still wearing pajamas. After Zhang Weili, who was in charge of reception, finished chatting with the other party, the man got up and went home to get his bank card, and quickly ran back to the gym - not only his own members, but also his wife, who also had a big belly. "When you like something, you say it with great passion. This person will be infected by you, and then you will have to practice. ”

It was also here that she met Wu Haotian, a professional mixed martial artist, who, amazed at her unlearned skills and strength beyond the average level of female athletes, took her to meet Cai Xuejun. Since 2013, coach "Cai Ge", her Bo Le, accompanied her all the way up the domestic competition, until she signed with the UFC, to the present.

02

A brutal history of blood and tears

In January 2019, the first year of Zhang Weili's victory in the UFC, the tournament officially reformed the classic championship belt that had been used for nearly 20 years. From then on, the winner of any title battle will have a custom-made title class, number of title defended statistics, and 8 transparent gems engraved on his or her belt - for each championship battle won, one of the gems will be replaced by a new red gem by the UFC, and when it is all red, the flag to which it belongs will be forever engraved on every subsequent belt.

Winning the first title and defending the title is not Zhang Weili's ultimate goal in the UFC. Her wish was straightforward to keep the five-star red flag on the UFC belt. However, wearing the UFC belt with eight gemstones and solid gold buttons, and then wanting to retrieve it again, is far more difficult for female UFC competitors than can be summed up by a fluttering phrase "it is easy to fight the river, but it is difficult to defend the river".

Zhang Weili fights to defend her title / Visual China

According to UFC rules, after any champion wins the belt, he or she must also accept the challenger's challenge within a certain period of time and constantly defend the title. Public information shows that this time period is generally within half a year, the UFC will arrange for it to defend the title - and most of the opponents in the competition are former champions, or the hottest fighters in this magnitude, so that in the circle, there is such a chilling evaluation: In the UFC, becoming a champion does not mean the end, but more like the beginning of a difficult journey.

Every UFC champion athlete who wants to fulfill his or her wish to defend his title must face many obstacles and pressures, including but not limited to: unfamiliar attacks from lower-ranked players, targeted tactical and tactical design made by opponents based on exposed competitive videos, and the high-intensity physical load brought by frequent preparation.

Specific to the UFC women's strawweight division, which stipulates that the weight limit is under 52 kilograms, since Zhang Weili defeated Andrade in 2019 and won the UFC belt for the first time, in this level of UFC events, the champion has only been fought back and forth in a small circle of 5 people: they are American "cookie monster" Carla Espazza and "mob rose" Ross Namayunas, Polish "alien queen" Joanna Jedelzesik, Brazilian "pile driver" Jessica Andrade, and Zhang Weili, the UFC's first Asian champion and affectionately known as "Little Fat" by fans on social platforms.

Fighting enthusiasts summed up the brutal competition in the UFC women's strawweight division this way: "It's almost a history of blood and tears forged by brutal finishes - behind every championship match, there is an earth-shattering, heart-wrenching battle to end with a crown." This is difficult to replicate in any UFC magnitude. ”

03

"Ghost Gate"

Greatness is first and foremost reflected in the daily diet and training of each athlete, and the need to maintain years of self-control and hardship is so long that athletes are required to live a monotonous life like a saint.

The greatness also stems from the fact that before the competition, for the players who have been tempered in mind and physical fitness, every time is still a weight loss of terrifying tests. Industry insiders from the fight circle told Nanfeng Window that for professional combat athletes, in order to meet the weight standards for competing in all classes, the weight loss in the weeks before the competition can be called "terrifying". "There are exaggerations, will lose 30% or even 40% of their original weight, wait until the scale is over, can eat carbohydrates, and slowly restore physical function through scientific diet."

Just last October, a former professional wrestler and bodybuilder in Japan died suddenly before the game due to heart failure caused by low blood sugar caused by weight loss, at the age of 36. In fact, in the mixed martial arts world, the death of athletes due to weight loss has occurred all over the world, and dehydration and weight loss can definitely be regarded as a "ghost door" for combat athletes before the competition.

While maintaining high-intensity training, in the two weeks or so before the competition, officially prepared combat athletes will not be allowed to consume a normal amount of water, but drink the medicinal soup prepared by the coach in advance, as is Zhang Weili - Chinese coaches are used to boiling their own special supplements the night before, the pot of medicinal soup contains astragalus, Rhodiola rosea and other medicinal materials, their role is to maximize the blood oxygen saturation of athletes to ensure the quality of training.

But in the United States, the scientific and technological support behind other UFC athletes is even deeper. In addition to a variety of nutritional supplements covering different aspects, some coaching teams also equip their athletes with hyperbaric oxygen chambers - athletes lie in, red blood cells can increase, thereby strengthening their cardiopulmonary function.

Before the rematch with Ross, Cai Xuejun took Zhang Weili to Henry Sejudo's training camp arena in Arizona, USA, to learn and train with the Olympic freestyle wrestling and UFC champion. Before the game, Zhang Weili's ligament strain, Sejudo's team immediately arranged for Zhang Weili to draw blood, then isolate the serum, and then inject it into Zhang Weili's injured part, so that her injury recovery faster, such a level of sports rehabilitation shocked Cai Xuejun - "They really have a lot of this technique." ”

Zhang Weili's coach Cai Xuejun

But these have never been Zhang Weili's worries, there is a gap in the level of preparation technology, you can use diligence to catch up, the team of foreign athletes is equipped with high-end, he and Cai Ge are one heart to chase dreams, the energy generated is incomparable to the former.

The real test is the weight-loss period before the race. Dietary intake without oil and salt, let alone carbs, the final stage can not even drink water, on the road of bitter cultivation, dehydration and weight reduction of this "ghost door", countless times made Zhang Weili uncomfortable crying, physiological suffering, even made her unable to sleep at night.

In November 2022, before the rematch with Ross at Madison Square Garden in New York, Zhang Weili needed to lose 4kg in just two days to meet the weight requirements of her class. There was no other traditional means to achieve the goal, and Zhang Weili was forced to use a more painful sauna to dehydrate: wearing sports underwear, she soaked in the hot water pool for a long time, and then wrapped in thick tin foil, afraid of physical accidents, all night, seven or eight people surrounded her, and no one slept.

When there were less than 40 hours left before the start of the game, no matter how much she tossed, Zhang Weili, who could not even discharge a drop of sweat, began to spit; The saliva was also dry, and the weight was still a little over the standard, Zhang Weili went to the toilet again, took off his underwear, let his colleagues surround himself with a bath towel, and then put on the scale, and finally passed the test.

For this reason, Zhang Weili rarely feels nervous about the competition, and probably not for the vast majority of mixed martial arts fighters, and after walking into the small door of the octagon that is only available to one person, it is the moment to completely release all her passion and energy - meaning that all the pain and suffering of training can come to an end, and the competition becomes a relatively easy thing.

04

Aesthetic confidence

After winning the first UFC belt belonging to the Chinese, Zhang Weili, whose reputation surged like a herd of magpies, was pushed to circle after circle of magnesium lights. MMA is still a niche sport in China, but now, there is an iconic yellow-skinned figure in this land of Shenzhou - the one-meter-six-three "Little Fat".

"Little fat", this is as early as 2006, when Zhang Weili first entered the Jiangsu sanda team, the senior brother in the team gave her the nickname of the short and strong at that time. Friends around her felt kind, so she kept shouting, until later she grew taller, muscle lines were more obvious, in order to fight in combat competitions to strictly control weight, but also became thinner, "eight-pack abs are a layer of skin on top", she still likes everyone to call herself so. Such a neutral nickname, it seems that Zhang Weili has never minded, she has not had the opportunity to show the weak image of an ordinary girl.

But she did not reveal her yearning for an ordinary happy life. In a reality show for women's urban emotional observation, Zhang Weili talked about the good life she envisioned ten years later: she was in her 40s at that time, she was likely to have retired from professional fighting, she may have a happy family, she is still engaged in martial arts related work, "living in Beijing, have a career she loves, if you can, buy a big villa." In the camera, she smiled and looked forward to it.

In China, including many practitioners, the knowledge and understanding of UFC and even mixed martial arts is still in the embryonic stage. Also in order to popularize and promote the popularity of the sport as widely as possible, in 2016, Zhang Weili also participated in the recording of another blind date show, and now looking back, it looks like a short "black history" joke dug up by fans, but through it, we can clearly glimpse the incredible strength of belief and consistent goals in this combat fighter.

Zhang Weili in the blind date show

In the show, from makeup and hair to dressing style, to her real profession, Zhang Weili, whose character setting was described as a "female man", was forced to accept the repeated decline and scrutiny of the program team. As she wore unaccustomed skirts and heels and paced crookedly toward the male guests, the staff around her repeatedly reminded her to polish her World Martial Arts Championship title as tactfully as possible.

After the program was broadcast, there was such a comment, which was highly praised and recognized on the Internet: "Zhang Weili does not need to participate in this blind date show at all, it is simply insulting." "It may be more difficult to break the gender stereotypes in many people's minds than to achieve a world martial arts championship, but in the process of constantly refining herself, Zhang Weili has slowly been seen and appreciated by more people, and has also made more people realize that the female beauty of a strong body is the embodiment of aesthetic diversity."

A reporter asked her, which female star do you think is the most beautiful? She replied: "I said I can do it myself?" Hahahaha. ”

Finally, she broke through the barriers that she had set for herself. But on the Internet, on TV shows, Zhang Weili still faces many unreasonable questions: "Do you need to pay attention to being beaten when marrying her" and "Is such a woman easy to marry". But she will no longer doubt herself, let alone lose herself because of such a comical prejudice, she chooses to fight back openly: "You think too much." We beat others for money, did you give money? ”

05

No trash talk

For mixed martial arts, standing longer on the top of a mountain requires athletes to persevere day in and day out, giving their full body and soul for the strongest muscles and the most destructive fists. Under the posters of the competition that vividly show Zhang Weili's muscular lines and resolute eyes, her more vivid and real side as a woman is unabashedly revealed in daily life.

The daily training plan should be executed without moving, but the physical discomfort and negative emotions caused by the menstrual period are inevitable. The coaching team are all "masters", feeling that they are not understood, she will simply lie down on the sofa while stirring her mouth, noisy and noisy, and her eyes will be closed for a while; It is clear that every punch she punches on the court is full of strength, making people shout "like a chamber" is powerful, but when she watched the fight scenes of other fighters on the spot, she opened her mouth in an "O" shape, and the more she looked, the more afraid she became, and she would cover her eyes with her hands and turn her back. "I don't dare to look at this, my mother, it hurts so much!"

"(I) is just like ordinary girls who are angry and cry when they are in a hurry." For questions such as "whether a fighter will be a partner for domestic violence", Zhang Weili has gone from feeling ridiculous to helpless. She has remained single for a long time in her emotional state, and she has also simply revealed her criteria for choosing a mate, which is nothing more than "talking".

Zhang Weili in life

In the gladiatorial arena, there is never a lack of bloody and violent elements that stimulate and even impact on the eyes. There is a rumor that at the beginning of the UFC, in order to increase the gimmicks and selling points of the competition, the event organizers even considered digging a trench outside the octagonal cage and putting crocodiles in the trench to prevent the athletes in the cage from escaping without permission because they could not bear the intensity of the competition.

But today's UFC women's strawweight champion Zhang Weili doesn't like blood, and people around her say she doesn't even dare to click on photos with blood in private. On the other hand, in November 2018, Zhang Weili's second event in the UFC, the opponent arranged by the organizers was Brazilian jiu-jitsu master Jessica Aguilar, who has been debuting for more than ten years. During the match, Zhang Weili used an elbow strike, and the opponent's face was smashed to the point of bleeding profusely, but he still did not give up fighting back. Zhang Weili wanted to end the other party, and then use the pincer technique, the two rolled on the ground, hands and feet entangled, blood rubbed Zhang Weili all over his thighs, the corners of his mouth were also stained with blood, and half of his face was pasted, and soon forced the other party to admit defeat.

A match detail is that every UFC duel has a "bonus" reward, meaning that if the match is played fiercely enough and is highly spectacular, the winner will receive tens of thousands of dollars in additional prizes. In this match with Aguilar, if Zhang Weili dragged the match to the second game for the sake of bonus, the injury on the opponent's face would continue to worsen, and it would be easier to take her down.

But after the match, Zhang Weili said that ending early is the greatest mercy to his opponent, because Aguilar had already bled too much at that time and could not watch his opponent hold on. "If I don't finish it will be worse, really worse... I just don't think I can do that, as an athlete. ”

No matter in the ring, Zhang Weili is not a person who likes to show anger and pride, or overwhelm the other party in momentum. She is more like a "modest warrior" among the domineering UFC fighters.

Zhang Weili

At every UFC pre-match press conference, Zhang Weili's speech was also short and quick, and she never wanted to say trash talk, "because it will have a bad impact on children, we are champions, not tyrants." Except for the famous match with Joanna on March 8, 2020, she really felt alive before the game.

This is the first title defense Zhang Weili has received since winning the UFC women's strawweight title. Before the game, the viral haze of the new crown pneumonia epidemic had been shrouded in China, and I don't know if it was a provocation, but Joanna posted a controversial poster online. In a poster of her and Zhang Weili's matchup, Joanna wears a gas mask.

"Making fun of someone else's misfortune is a true manifestation of a person's qualities. Many people are facing death, they have fathers, mothers, and children. If it makes you feel stronger, say I'm okay, but don't joke about what's happening here. I wish you good health by March 7 and I will see you soon. Zhang Weili's response is neither humble nor arrogant, but any fan can hear the anger she contains.

For the provocation of the opponent's unwarranted stigmatization outside the field, Zhang Weili gave her own response with her all-out performance on the field. The battle between Zhang Weili and Joanna lasted for a full 5 rounds. During the 25 minutes of this extremely high-intensity confrontation, the two launched more than 600 strikes and completed 351 effective strikes, ranking third in UFC history and sending the audience to one of the most exciting women's matches in the history of the event. After the stormy offensive, the faces of the two almost changed compared with the appearance on the pre-match poster.

2020 UFC248: Zhang Weili and Joanna match scene / Visual China

They were admitted to the same hospital for treatment, separated by only a curtain. At that time, Joanna cried out in pain, and the crying continued for several hours. Zhang Weili, who couldn't bear it, took the initiative to step forward to comfort and encourage the other party to play well. "Come on, it's going to be harder and harder." Joanna returned the blessing.

All the disrespect and slander have dissipated, and before leaving, Joanna also left Zhang Weili with this sentence: Continue to defend the title, I will watch you.

06

Surrounded by calm

The setback came a year later, as Joanna prophesied. On April 25, 2021, Zhang Weili's title defense battle with Ross Namayunas began. At the beginning of the match 73 seconds, she was hit in the head by a high sweep from the latter's left leg and fell, Ross immediately followed, continued to punch on the ground, the referee directly blew the match to stop, Zhang Weili was ruled to lose. The time was too fast, and Zhang Weili, who lost the gold belt on the spot, was full of dazed and doubtful eyes in his eyes.

On the Internet, the ensuing bad comments continued for a long time. After she lost two UFC championship fights against Ross in 2021, netizens attacked Zhang Weili's daily sharing life on social platforms as greedy for pleasure; In order to promote mixed martial arts, she participated in several sports variety shows, which was regarded as evidence of the crime of delaying training and failing the expectations of fans, and online violent remarks like this flooded her.

Plagued by the nightmare of losing the game, Zhang Weili fell into a rare state of vulnerability. She used to like to occasionally turn on the online live broadcast for a short time in her spare time, sitting and chatting with fans; I also love to share my daily selfies and food photos on Weibo; She will also adopt stray small animals, in addition to the black and white teddy "Little Seven", a Schnauzer breed pet dog "Mio" was raised by her in the gym, and the intimate video with Mio is also one of the rare dynamics uploaded by Zhang Weili on Weibo, in addition to training and competition content.

Zhang Weili with her pet

Zhang Weili, who has lived with the coaching team for a long time, is almost all male with her partners, and the relaxing moment of surfing the Internet was originally a small world where she experienced the daily happiness of ordinary girls, but after losing the UFC battle against "Rose the Mob" Ross, it became a noisy space that she wanted to escape and no longer wanted to communicate.

Cai Xuejun sensed something wrong with her. In that bleak time, he proposed that after training every day, Zhang Weili handed over her mobile phone to herself for safekeeping, hoping to prevent her from browsing all kinds of information on the Internet before going to bed and avoiding more cranky; He took Zhang Weili to see the counselor regularly, and "Little Fat" cooperated very seriously, although she was not used to this kind of careful treatment.

After losing to Ross, it was in Zhang Weili's throat in one breath, which was a strong obsession with immediate revenge, and it kept torturing Zhang Weili: "I always feel tired when training and want to rest; But when I rest, I feel uneasy and feel that I should go to training. After Lian Yu returned to China, the restless Zhang Weili simply suspended training, and as soon as Fang ended the 30-day epidemic quarantine, she went directly to her hometown, Handan, Hebei.

This is the first time since she stepped into professional martial arts that she has given herself such a long vacation. In two weeks, Zhang Weili regained her long-lost state of relaxation, became easier and closer to her parents, and she also had the courage to set off for Beijing again to regain strength for the next belt of her career.

Back in Beijing and resuming training, Zhang Weili was surprised to find that the qi that had been holding herself had disappeared. Running, is running, kicking the target, is kicking the target, there are no thoughts in her mind. Like water, empty, she just felt surrounded by calm, something she had never experienced in her previous athletic career. Under the spotlight of the world, on the most watched fighting stage, Zhang Weili experienced the ups and downs of victory and defeat, according to Cai Xuejun's words, she calmed down, "It's not using the brain, it's the heart." ”

Six months later, in November 2021, in a rematch with Ross, the two fought until the last second of the fifth round. At the end of the match, the referee held the hands of both of them. Then, Rose's hand was raised and she began to cry.

2021 UFC268: Zhang Weili lost to Ross in a rematch, unfortunately unable to regain the belt / Visual China

Post-match data shows that Zhang Weili made 272 sorties, hit 162 times, and fell 11 times 5 times successfully; Ross hit 130 times 219 times, hit 130 times, and hit all 2 times, which is a close match under the current formal fighting rules, and the excitement of the match is also worthy of repeated review by the audience. This time, Zhang Weili accepted the result calmly, she hugged Ross after the game, she learned to face the result more calmly and calmly, and also respected every good opponent from the bottom of her heart.

The mentality is becoming more and more calm and mature, and nothing can stop Zhang Weili's pace of improvement. Also in Madison Square Garden in New York, USA, the same referee, Zhang Weili regained the belt in the second leg with a clean victory over then-champion Esparza in the second leg.

The last boiling moment inside and outside the octagon cage occurred when the referee raised Zhang Weili's right hand, and the heavy gold belt hung around her waist again. Speaking into the microphone, she shouted "I come back."

After 567 days, Zhang Weili climbed back to the top until August, when she successfully defended her title again. There is a line in Million Dollar Baby: "If there's a trick to boxing, it's fighting non-stop, beyond the limits of endurance, beyond broken ribs, cracked kidneys and detached retinas." This should be the best footnote to Zhang Weili not giving up herself and fighting again after falling from the top of the mountain.

07

The tide continues to rush

And in the first title defense after regaining the belt on August 20 this year, Zhang Weili completed 288 effective blows against her opponent Lemos, from standing to the ground, forming an all-round suffocating offensive suppression for the Brazilian heavy gunner below her - just like in a pre-match interview, Zhang Weili described her expected goal: this time I want to be softer, to be rigid and soft, to be as smooth as water.

There is a theory that the UFC first originated from Bruce Lee, who was once called the "father of MMA" by UFC president Dana Bai. "The impossible is the law, the infinite is the limit", the mixed martial arts concept advocated by Bruce Lee has been practiced and imitated many times in UFC events so far.

But in his 1971 interview program, Bruce Lee's famous phrase "Be water, my friend" was widely recited by the wider group of combat sports and even martial arts enthusiasts, which also became Zhang Weili's martial arts philosophy in the UFC's bloody and cruel octagon.

Zhang Weili still remembers the first time she came to Beijing on the high-speed train in 2009. The 20-year-old student at Beipiao Sanda Sports School is ready to join his brother here. Stepping out of the train station, she had to cross a flyover to catch the bus.

It was six or seven o'clock in the evening, and the rush hour should not have passed. Standing on a high place and looking down, she had never seen such an endless flow of traffic, "everywhere is brightly lit, the feeling of a big city." I felt, oh my God, I'm so small." Zhang Weili on the flyover is not clear how his fate will unfold in the future after retiring from sports school.

Ten years later, on that night in Shenzhen, the UFC's record for the first Asian title was written as the referee raised Zhang Weili's hand. Zhang Zhuolin, senior vice president of UFC Asia Pacific, commented on Zhang Weili: "She is holding up the tide of all ships. ”

Now, the indomitable tide has found its own direction. These extremely high levels of praise did not make Zhang Weili, who had been immersed in Beijing traffic, dazzled: she counted every senior on the UFC Hall of Fame list announced over the years, and none of those real fighters retired from the championship position - she hoped that her future self would "be more beautiful when you go up, and be more beautiful when you come down."

"I want to be a legend."

The pictures in the article are partly from Visual China and partly from the Internet

Edit | Ashu

Typesetting | Sissy

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