On October 11, a Henan TV program broadcast an exclusive interview with Zhang Zhilei, which was actually done after Zhang Zhilei returned to China at the end of last month and was presented to the public after these days of post-editing. Although the interview is very encouraging, there is a controversial remark in the interview, because Zhang Zhilei claims that he is "Asia's first heavyweight boxing champion", which is obviously incorrect.
To be fair, Zhang Zhilei's double defeat of Joyce this year, winning and defending the WBO Transitional World Belt is indeed very face-to-face for the Chinese people, and the WBO Transitional World title won is indeed very valuable and breakthrough, but Zhang Zhilei's putting the honor of "Asia's first heavyweight boxing champion" on himself is obviously very wrong, and it also exposes the lack of professional boxing knowledge in China, which needs to be vigorously popularized in the future.
According to information released by BoxRec, the world's authoritative boxing statistics agency, and domestic media, the first fighter in China to win the world's heavyweight title belt is not Zhang Zhilei, but Zhang Junlong. Zhang Junlong turned professional boxing in 2012, 2 years before Zhang Zhilei. Zhang Junlong won the WBU Transitional Heavyweight World Championship belt in November 2014 with a three-round knockout of American Jason Gavin. Gavin, a former rival of Joshua and Wild and having also defeated James Tony "The Lights Out", is very experienced in the competition, judging by any angle, Zhang Junlong is China's first heavyweight world belt winner.
Maybe some people will pick bones in the egg and say that the gold content of WBU is not as good as WBO, which is indeed true, but the gold content of WBO is actually not high in the 90s, and Riddick Bao even held a press conference to throw the WBO belt into the trash because the WBO was called the "fourth world" at the time. It was only since 2000 that the WBO was pushed into the top four organizations. Although the status of the WBU is not as good as the WBO, the WBU is also a boxing organization with red seedlings, not a pheasant organization, David Toa, Rich Hatton and other celebrities have won the title, so Zhang Zhilei is by no means China's first heavyweight world boxing champion, this title belongs to Zhang Junlong.
So, who is "Asia's first World Champion certified by the heavyweight four organizations"? According to BoxRec, Uzbek fighter Chagaev is the first Asian heavyweight, he defeated the 2.13-meter-tall, 319-pound Varov with a weight of 228 pounds in 2007, and won all 46 fights at that time, and won the WBA heavyweight world belt, and this belt is not a transitional title, but a real world title, so the "Asia's first heavyweight four organizations certified world boxing champion" honor does not belong to Zhang Zhilei or Zhang Junlong, but belongs to Chagaev.
According to the norms, Zhang Zhilei is "the first yellow or Chinese in history to win the world heavyweight belt certified by the four major organizations", such a statement is objective and correct, because the current WBO official world heavyweight title belt is in the hands of Usyk, so Zhang Zhilei is not currently fully regarded as the world belt winner certified by the four major organizations, and his identity is between the official world champion and the mandatory challenger, and he is wandering between the two.
Finally, Zhang Junlong and Zhang Zhilei are the pride of the Chinese people, and the two have also fought many times during the period of the system, Zhang Junlong has only lost once, and the rest of the official matches ended in Zhang Junlong winning.
Of course, Zhang Zhilei's ability to shine in the international professional arena in recent years is also quite encouraging to the Chinese people, and his day-to-day hard work is inseparable, his focus on boxing is admirable, and I hope he can continue to have good performances and win glory for the country. At the same time, I also hope that Zhang Junlong can fight as soon as possible and rush to the top again!