Zhilei Zhang Is China’s Big Hope for Boxing Greatness

A decade after leaving for the U.S. to embark on a professional career, the hard hitter is making waves in the heavyweight division—while drumming up interest in the sport back home.

As if Zhilei Zhang wasn’t already intimidating—as if being 6' 6" with Thanos-like fists didn’t make your knees rattle, as if back-to-back knockout wins last year over granite-chinned Brit Joe Joyce weren’t enough—on this particular mid-November afternoon, inside a nondescript gun range in northern New Jersey, Zhang has his fingers wrapped around a Sig Sauer P365 XL. Guns, Zhang insists, were never his thing. His trainer, Shaun George, introduced him to recreational shooting a few years ago; Kurt Li, his co-manager, translator and, it turned out, part-time range safety officer, showed him the ropes. The first time he pulled a trigger, his hands trembled.

“Very nervous,” says Zhang.

But there was something about the simplicity of it. The focus needed to hit a small target. The repetition required to get good at it. “Soothing,” is how Zhang describes it. So a couple of times a month Zhang drives to the range and fires a box of bullets at paper targets hanging 25 feet away.

“He’s a coach’s dream,” George says of Zhang. “He will do whatever you tell him. Not just listen, but he tries to understand it.” :: Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

An unusual training technique? Sure, but Zhang is not your usual fighter. Like, what is a two-time Chinese Olympic heavyweight doing in suburban Jersey? For that you have to go to Terry and Tommy Lane, cofounders of Lane Brothers Boxing. In 2009 the Chinese national boxing team began making sporadic trips to the U.S. for training camps. Eventually the Lanes, then small-time promoters in Nevada, began hearing chatter about some of the talent, including Zhang, who punched his way to a silver medal at the ’08 Beijing Games. The Lanes linked up with Dino Duva, a veteran U.S. promoter who had built some relationships in China. Together, the trio formed Dynasty Boxing, negotiating with the Chinese government to turn a handful of fighters pro, including Zhang, and bring them to the United States. Duva, the former president of Main Events, was based in New Jersey. So, in ’14, Zhang went there.

O.K. So how is it that Zhang, 40 years old and more than a decade into his pro career, is suddenly one of boxing’s best big men? For that you have to go to George, a fringe cruiserweight who retired in 2009. At the urging of his manager—Duva’s father, Lou—George decided to get into training. Lou invited George to a U.S.–China national team dual meet in New York and pointed out Zhang. “Watch this guy,” he told George. “He’s going to be heavyweight champ.”

“He was huge,” says George.

The more George watched, the more he liked. Zhang had size, sure. But he also had speed. Athleticism. Slashing power. After the meet, the Chinese coaches invited George to a camp in the Poconos. “They liked my philosophies,” says George. With the 2010 Asian Games around the corner, the coaches asked George to come to Beijing to work with their top prospects.

George liked China, so much so that when Zhang turned pro and moved to New Jersey, George stayed behind. Three years later, in 2017, Zhang, his career floundering, asked him to become his head trainer and George agreed.

“Everybody thinks he just figured out how to fight,” George says. “That’s not the case. Zhilei knew how to fight a long time ago. He’s like a giant that just needed to be provoked.” :: James Chance/Getty Images

From afar, George had cringed at how Zhang was being developed. There was no plan, he says. No visible signs of improvement. The only objective seemed to be to lard Zhang’s record with enough warm bodies until one of the top heavyweights would pay a premium to face him. “Do you remember Nikolai Valuev?” asks George, referencing the 7-foot Russian who briefly held a heavyweight title. “That’s how everyone was looking at Zhilei. Like a gimmick.”

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.”

What followed was a mix of success (11 straight wins from September 2016 to November ’20) and setbacks (a draw against Jerry Forrest in ’21, a narrow-decision defeat to Filip Hrgović in ’22). Last April, Zhang was tapped to face Joyce. It was a showcase fight for Joyce, the ’16 Olympic silver medalist who was next in line for a title shot and considered un-knock-out-able. Considered. Zhang, an 11-to-1 underdog, battered Joyce over six rounds until the referee mercifully stopped the fight. In the rematch five months later—a bout Zhang admonished Joyce’s handlers not to take—he needed just three rounds to put Joyce on the canvas.

“I warned them,” Zhang says with a shrug. “Big mistake.”

Suddenly the sideshow was a star. Only in Zhang’s camp, it wasn’t sudden. “Nobody wanted to trust the process,” says George. “Everybody thinks he just figured out how to fight. That’s not the case. Zhilei knew how to fight a long time ago. He’s like a giant that just needed to be provoked.”

As a 6’ 6”, 40-year-old fighter who speaks no English, Zhang stands out at the True Warriors Boxing Club in Paterson, N.J.  :: Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

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.”

But he was big. Not just for his family. For his town. Zhang grew up in Shenqiu, a rural county that sits on the line between Henan and Anhui in the eastern part of the country. He wasn’t athletically gifted. Wasn’t so athletically inclined, either. When he was 12, his father, concerned about his weight, suggested Zhang try sports. Kayaking was popular. Zhang liked it. But the first time he squeezed his 6' 1", 190-pound frame into one he felt the water splashing into the sinking vessel as he paddled.

His kayaking coach suggested boxing. Zhang didn’t know a little about boxing. He knew nothing. China Central Television only showed fights on Sunday mornings, and Zhang wasn’t watching. But there was something about the feeling of the gloves. The thwack of the heavy bag. “It just got me excited,” says Zhang. After two weeks of training, he sparred with a provincial champion. “I beat the crap out of him,” says Zhang. “He was bleeding all over his face. That was when I realized I was actually pretty good.”

Chinese officials did, too. In 1998, Zhang moved to Zhengzhou, the site of a provincial training center. Success followed. A silver medal at the 2004 university championships. A bronze at the world championships in ’07. In ’08, Zhang claimed his silver medal at the Beijing Olympics. He began studying not just boxing but also boxers. Mike Tyson. Evander Holyfield. Lennox Lewis. Not just their skills but also their fortitude. “Great heavyweights, when they fight into the last couple of rounds they’re all gassed out, but they are still throwing punches,” says Zhang. “At the end of the fight it’s all mental. That’s when you see a fighting spirit.”

Shortly after the Olympics, Dino Duva was invited to Beijing to consult for the Chinese Boxing Federation. In Zhang, he saw not just talent but unprecedented ambition. At the time, Chinese boxers didn’t turn pro. Few of the country’s athletes did. “When you’re a national athlete in China, you get treated very well,” says Duva. “You’re supported by the government. They support your family. They give you bonuses and pay you well. But if you decide to make the move to become professional, they cut you off.” Zhang, Duva says, wanted more.

Zhang won the super-heavyweight silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  :: Al Bello/Getty Images

“He had this determination,” Duva says. “He really wanted to move on past being a Chinese national athlete and become a professional boxer.”

In the quarterfinals of the 2012 London Olympics, Zhang lost to Anthony Joshua. A year later, after winning a championship at the National Games of China, Zhang retired from the national team at age 30, laying his jersey in the center of the ring after his final fight. Then it was off to New Jersey, but not before he decided to leave his wife and son in China.

“It was very difficult,” says Zhang. “But it was what I had to do.”

The early years in the U.S. were chaotic. Zhang’s pro debut, says Tommy Lane, “was a disaster.” The original opponent fell out a week before the bout. His replacement went down nine seconds into the first round. The Lanes and Duva clashed over how to best develop their fighter. Duva wanted to make him into a big puncher whose power would be his draw. “Dino saw Zhang as a Chinese Primo Carnera,” says Terry. Duva insists he believed in Zhang but understood a fighter so new to the pro style needed to be brought along slowly.

A few months after Zhang’s debut, Dynasty Boxing went bust. “We ran out of money,” says Terry. The Lanes exited the business. Duva pivoted Zhang to Roc Nation, with Duva joining as an executive. Roc Nation—like many new promoters—entered boxing with a bunch of money and no plan. Zhang continued to fight but often at low-profile shows. When he did get opportunities he stumbled. In 2015, Zhang, fighting on the undercard of Miguel Cotto’s middleweight title defense against Canelo Álvarez, faced Juan Goode. Zhang was knocked down in the fourth round, narrowly squeezing out a decision. “He looked like s---,” says Duva. “His training, his diet, his living habits, they were all bad.” The next year George returned and addressed it, laying out a structured schedule and enlisting nutritionists.

“He’s a coach’s dream,” says George. “He will do whatever you tell him. Not just listen, but he tries to understand it.”

In 2019, the Lanes re-entereded the picture, this time as advisers. Roc Nation announced it was exiting boxing. The Lanes negotiated Zhang’s release with Matchroom Boxing, which Duva had cut a deal with, becoming his lead promoter. For all the work George and his team of nutritionists did, maintaining a regimen during the pandemic was not easy. In March ’21, Zhang faced Forrest. He knocked Forrest down three times in the first three rounds. In the second half of the fight, he ran out of gas, ultimately settling for a draw. Zhang says in the week leading up to the fight he drank only one bottle of water. Afterward he was hospitalized for kidney failure, liver damage and anemia.

Zhang traveled to the U.K. for his first meeting with local hero Joyce, whom he easily dispatched in six rounds last April.  :: James Chance/Getty Images

A year later, Zhang faced Hrgović, an undefeated former Olympic bronze medalist from Croatia. Hrgović had never been past the eighth round. Zhang took him 12, dropping a razor-thin decision. “He won,” says George. “You’ll never convince me otherwise.” A few months later Zhang got the call for Joyce. Cutting left hands did the job in the first fight. One thudding right did it in the rematch.

“Now they know,” says Zhang. “Chinese power is real power. It can put anyone down.”

The short answer to what a heavyweight boxer eats is, well, everything. Steak, chicken, different kinds of fish. During a recent visit to Jiang Nan, a Chinese-fusion joint Zhang frequents in Montclair, N.J., a plate filled with flat, oval-shaped meat arrives at the table. George slides a piece between a pair of chopsticks and asks Zhang to identify it. He always asks. In China, George was often offered food he couldn’t identify. Horse. Bull penis. Snake blood. “Cow tongue,” says Zhang. The chopsticks drop. “Nope,” says George. “Not eating that.”

There’s a cheeriness to Zhang. He has stability, both in his career and with the people around him. Li, who has been with Zhang since 2010. George, Zhang says, “is like a brother.” In ’18, with his career stalled, Zhang considered retirement. Now he believes he has several good years left in him. His next fight will likely come in March, on the undercard of Joshua’s heavyweight showdown with former UFC champion Francis Ngannou. A title shot of his own—Zhang holds an interim version of the WBO title—could come soon afterward.

Which raises the question: Can Zhang open up the Chinese market? His visibility there is growing. Zhang has 2.3 million followers on Douyin, China’s equivalent to TikTok. Both Joyce fights were streamed on Douyin, available for $1 as a pay-per-view. “It got pirated more than it got bought,” says Terry. “But the number of views was in the tens of millions.”

In September, Zhang returned to China for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerned that no one would recognize him, Li hired a dozen actors to greet him. When Zhang exited the Hangzhou Railway Station, hundreds of fans were waiting for him. “No one was paying attention to me when I first turned pro,” says Zhang. “But with my recent fights and the recent noise I’m making, it’s significant. The recognition of boxing in China now is tremendous.”

“Now they know,” says Zhang, who has 21 KOs in 28 fights. “Chinese power is real power. It can put anyone down.”  :: Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

It’s just not popular. Not yet anyway. China has 1.4 billion people, but, says promoter Bob Arum, “that doesn’t mean anything. India has [the same] number of people, and you couldn’t sell a ticket to Mahatma Gandhi fighting for the title.” In 2013, Arum signed Zou Shiming, Zhang’s Olympic teammate. The relationship was successful, with Zou even winning a 112-pound title. But he failed to capture national interest. “The problem was the guy couldn’t f—ing fight,” says Arum. “He won two gold medals, I don’t know how, but he couldn’t fight.” Zhang, Arum says, is different. “Heavyweights are the baddest guys in the world,” says Arum. “And I think his ability is much greater than Zou’s was.”

The Lanes agree. They see Zhang leading a new generation. “We always thought he could be the Yao Ming of boxing,” says Tommy. Under Armour signed on as a sponsor, and Baijiu, a popular Chinese liquor, could join them. Businesspeople in the country have expressed an interest in bringing a title fight to the mainland—the Bird’s Nest, Beijing’s 91,000-seat stadium, is the dream—and the Lanes have been looking for young Chinese fighters to fill Zhang’s undercards.

Zhang, says Tommy, “can be the godfather of Chinese boxing,” a pioneer for future generations. “The next Sugar Ray Robinson could be some 8-year-old from Shanghai who’s never seen a boxing glove,” says Tommy. “They have the athletic talent pool. There’s no reason it can’t be.”

Perhaps even in the family. At the table, Zhang flashes a picture of his son, who still lives in China and sees his dad a few times a year. His name is Jingze—Mandarin for “respect the rules”—but he is known to Zhang’s U.S. contingent as Zach. Now 14 years old, he’s 6’ 2” and weighs 200 pounds. There’s no doubt where Zach’s size comes from. But asked whether Zach boxes, Zhang shakes his head. Likes school, Zhang says. Studies English. But hates sports. Oof. That’s one no. But there are still more than a billion to go.