Zhang Zhilei would love an opportunity to upset another undefeated heavyweight Frank Warren’s company promotes now that he has knocked off Joe Joyce.
The newly crowned WBO interim champion would welcome a shot at WBC champ Tyson Fury, who is expected to return to the ring sometime this summer. Joyce was considered an option for Fury by Warren and his co-promoter, Bob Arum, before China’s Zhilei stopped him due to severe swelling around his right eye in the sixth round Saturday night at Copper Box Arena in London.
“Let’s do that,” Zhilei said through a translator when asked about facing Fury during a post-fight interview with IFL TV. “If my team says that, let’s do that. I can go either way.”
The 6-foot-6, 278-pound Zhilei predicted he would knock out Fury if given the opportunity.
“Tyson Fury doesn’t have that chin,” Zhilei said. “He will go down.”
Zhilei (25-1-1, 20 KOs) has other options besides Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs), but perhaps a contractual obligation to meet in his next fight. There was a rematch clause in his contract for his bout with London’s Joyce (15-1, 14 KOs), whose team chose the 13th-ranked Zhilei for an optional defense of his WBO belt and risked Joyce’s position as one of Oleksandr Usyk’s mandatory challengers.
The rematch doesn’t have to be immediate according to language in their contracts, but it ultimately will be up to Joyce whether he wants to fight Zhilei right away. If Joyce were to allow Zhilei to fight Fury or someone else, he would risk the possibility of Zhilei losing and then never receiving the rematch he is owed.
Zhilei, a 2008 Olympic silver medalist, assumed Joyce’s spot as the WBO’s mandatory challenger for Usyk’s WBO belt by beating Joyce.
Ukraine’s Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) would be obligated first, according to the rotation established among the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO, to make a mandatory defense of his WBA belt against London’s Daniel Dubois next. If Usyk were to defeat Dubois (19-1, 18 KOs), who owns the WBA’s secondary crown, he would then need to battle the IBF’s mandatory challenger, Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic (15-0, 12 KOs), before it would be Zhilei’s turn as the WBO’s mandatory challenger.
Whoever he fights next, Zhilei, who will turn 40 on May 2, realizes he completely changed his life by beating the 6-foot-6, 256-pound Joyce.
“This is the beginning,” Zhilei said. “I’m going for the title.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.