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His Excellency Turki Alalshikh wants to assemble a heavyweight fight between contenders Martin Bakole and Zhilei Zhang for China or Africa.
Bakole’s Title Shot: Delayed or Denied?
Bakole (21-1, 16 KOs) shouldn’t have to fight the 41-year-old Zhang (27-2-1, 22 KOs) to get a title shot against the winner of the December 21st rematch between Tyson Fury, WBA, WBC, and WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. Martin deserves a title shot now and shouldn’t have to wait.
From a business standpoint, keeping the Fury-Usyk 2 winner away from dangerous punchers like Bakole and Zhang makes sense because those guys hit too hard, and they could run the money fight against Anthony Joshua that awaits. Still, if boxing is a sport, Bakole or Zhang should get their shot.
Bakole reportedly got the better of Usyk in sparring, and you can only imagine what he would do against him, Fury, or Joshua with his George Foreman-esque power.
With Bakole’s fourth-round knockout win over Jared Anderson on August 3rd, he’s ready to fight for a world title right now, and he deserves to challenge the winner of Fury-Usyk 2 rather than needing to jump through another hoop to get his rightful shot.
Mike Coppinger reports that Turki wants to put the Bakole vs. Zhang fight together for China or Africa next. He doesn’t say whether the winner will be given an immediate title shot or if they’ll need to fight yet another match against someone else.
Zhang is coming off a 5th-round knockout win over 38-year-old former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder on June 1st in Riyadh. Wilder entered the contest, losing three out of his last four fights.
The Allure of China
“I would love to fight big Zhang in December in China,” Bakole said to Sky Sports Boxing. “I heard His Excellency wanted to make the fight in China, so that’s the fight I’m looking for. If that happens, I’ll be so happy.”
The money would be good for Bakole and Zhang for a fight in China, and it would likely attract a big crowd for a stadium if they staged it in Beijing, with a population of 22 million.
It’s hard to imagine with that many people. With the proper advertising, Bakole vs. Zhang would be massive in Beijing. I was in Tokyo, Japan, recently, and there were enormous amounts of people. The city has 13 million people, but nothing compared to Beijing. You can only imagine the crowd that would turn up to watch Zhang vs. Bakole.
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