A lot of famous people are known by just ONE THING: a winning shot in a championship game, saying the wrong word or phrase in a public speech or even a cameo in a Hollywood movie. You’re about to hear Tony interview someone who has had multiple defining moments that people remember him by.
On March 6, 1985, Mike Tyson captivated the world’s attention for the first time. Then, the 18-year-old boxer made his pro-boxing debut in a match against Hector Mercedes — and defeated Mercedes in a first-round technical knockout.
Notes: We have been trying to shake this division out see in yahoo.com the top three for a good while now. Luis Alberto Lopez made another fine statement on Sept. 15, beating Joet Gonzalez. Leigh Wood gets Josh Warrington on Oct. 7. Robeisy fights Rafael Espinoza in early November. Wood-Warrington is a decent fight, all things considered, while Ramirez-Espinoza isn’t. And yet Ramirez really might be the best of the lot.
Zhang isn’t sure where his size comes from. Both his parents were under 6 feet. His brother and sister—Zhang is the youngest of three—are as well. He’s heard stories about his great-grandfather being big but can’t say for certain. “Maybe,” muses Zhang, “some kind of genetic mutation.”
Down a warehouse-lined stretch of Paterson, New Jersey, a heavyweight boxer pounds the punching bag in an otherwise quiet gym. Boxers aren’t an unusual sight in this small town just a few miles from Manhattan; most notable among homegrown products are former WBO junior welterweight titleholder Kendall Holt and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the hard-hitting middleweight contender who was the only man to stop Emile Griffith.
“Respect to Zhilei Zhang, it was a good fight but I think I could have done better, I think because I haven’t fought a southpaw for so long. Credit to him because he was a good fighter, and I gave it my all. I think I could do better but it’s just disappointing.
George saw something different. Back in Jersey, George worked to fine-tune Zhang’s skills. Chin tucked lower. Hands held higher. “At the same time, not change him so much where he doesn’t know how to use his feet,” says George. “Because he’s actually really quick on his feet. But you guys don’t know yet. He has pretty good hand speed, but you guys are actually just noticing now.”
“We thought we’d break him down in close,” said Sheeraz afterwards. “I know everyone says ‘use your jab’, but, at the same time, I need to break him down. I was throwing the uppercut, but the corner was saying right hook. I turned it over and he was gone.
Then there was British heavyweight Julius Francis in Manchester, England. Francis had no chance against Mike Tyson and he probably figured, hey, why not capitalize on the situation? To nobody’s surprise, Francis was decked five times in the first two rounds. Iron Mike put him flat on his back in the second round and as he was being counted out by the referee, it was hard not to notice that emblazoned on the soles of Francis’ shoes were the words, “Buy the London Daily Mirror.” I can only suppose that the next day, newspaper sales in London skyrocketed.
At age seven, Zhang and his father moved to downtown Shenqiu County for educational reasons. Zhang later attended Shenqiu’s Huaidian Hui Town No.3 Middle School. His father enrolled him in canoe sprinting lessons in order for him to lose weight. The Zhoukou region was a hotbed of watersports in the 1990s, with Olympic rower Mu Suli, born the same year as Zhang, growing up in a different part of Zhoukou during the 1990s.
“A week later he fought and knocked out Clifford in one round and I was upset. I was happy for Mike that he won, but I was also upset that I had trained him for eight weeks and I wasn’t part of that win.”
Round 3: The main attack from Zinad is the jab and the one-two, which Bivol is timing with ease. You’re not going to open up a fighter of Bivol’s calibre with this approach. Zinad needs a lot more, but the task is probably beyond him. Bivol backing the challenger up and doing what he wants.
Zhang’s slow rise to prominence was also contributed to the debacle that saw his first and second promotional companies go out of business in 2014 and 2020 respectively and the legal chaos that followed.
“We set the bar pretty high with the last upfront,” said Espinoza, an unabashed boxing fan who freewheels on Twitter with thoughts ranging from politics to his beloved Dallas Cowboys. “We had a lot of fighters there; we had great turnout, which is saying a lot when it’s the first year of everything. Everyone we wanted was there, they were dressed well and on time.”
“You saw that I danced in my corner when I dropped him in the third round. I was way too relaxed.” Next up for Zhang is a showdown with Wilder as part of the Queensbury vs. Matchroom 5 vs. 5 event in Saudi Arabia next month, and the 41-year-old is determined not to lose focus on beating the American.
Struggling financially, the Tyson family moved to Brownsville, a Brooklyn neighborhood known for its high crime. Small and shy, Tyson was often the target of bullying. To combat this, he began developing his own style of street fighting, which ultimately transitioned into criminal activity. His gang, known as the Jolly Stompers, assigned him to clean out cash registers while older members held victims at gunpoint. He was only 11 years old at the time.
