Zou poised for Las Vegas debut
Print Edition
TWO-TIME Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming is grateful to share the billing with Manny Pacquiao as he goes for his first-ever professional boxing crown against a familiar foe in Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym of Thailand.
Zou and Kwanpichit are key components in an international undercard to tomorrow’s main event between Filipino star Pacquiao and World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Jessie Vargas. Zou (8-1, 2 knockouts) has been called the “poster boy of boxing” in China but he is just getting his career started in the United States.
Tomorrow’s bout at the Thomas & Mack Center will be just his second outside of China and his first in the boxing haven of Las Vegas in Nevada.
Zou, from Guizhou, has every reason to be confident heading into their rematch for the vacant WBO flyweight title. He beat Kwanpichit two years ago in China’s Macau, pounding the Thai in an unanimous decision victory.
Kwanpichit (39-1-2, 24 KOs) is riding a two-year, 12-bout winning streak since Zou handed him his sole defeat. All of his victories during his current streak have come by knockout.
Freddie Roach, who trains both Zou and Pacquiao, said he has warned the 35-year-old Zou to beware of bruising tactics from Kwanpichit.
“The last time we fought him (Kwanpichit) was head butting and landing low blows,” Roach said.
The 2008 and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Zou came up short in his previous title tilt against Thailand’s Amnat Ruenroeng in 2015.
Zou and Kwanpichit’s bout will open the impressive undercard for Pacquiao’s return.
Kwanpichit is unfazed by the prospect of meeting Zou again, adamant that he is a vastly improved fighter to the one comprehensively beaten by Zou two years ago.
“Zou is rated No. 2 and I am rated No. 3, but that is the only thing that has remained the same from our first fight,” said Kwanpichit.
In another bout on the card, Nonito Donaire of the Philippines will put his WBO junior featherweight crown on the line against American Jessie Magdaleno.
Donaire, 37-3 with 24 knockouts, has been training hard under new trainer Ismael Salas.
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