Which top 15 heavyweight could beat Zhang without being floored once?

Usyk and Fury would breeze past Zhang IMO.

The rest might beat Zhang but would have a hard nights work at least. That includes AJ, Dubois, Itauma, Wardley and so on.

Zhang has dropped Hrgovic, Parker and Kabayel to name that are still HW contenders currently. Not mentioning Joyce or Wilder.

 

People are trying to downplay Parker now because he lost to Wardley. Some people were over-rating him after he beat Wilder and Zhang, but before that they were down-playing him for years, and before that, when he was coming up, they were over-playing him a bit. It goes like that with Parker. People can't just accept he's one of the best of the era, a solid contender, can't be written off against anyone but he's likely to lose some because he fights them all. He's a proper fighter, very good, not a 'great', but he's good.

 

Oh boy, an opportunity to pump up my boy Zhang

So, reading this back after having typed it out, it turned out waaay longer than I expected. To answer the question in a more succinct way for people who don't feel like reading all of the below: For all Zhang's faults (the big ones being a bad gas tank and **** poor discipline which exacerbates said gas issues), the man is more than just a single big punch.

He carries dangerous power in both hands, possesses underrated hand speed and timing skills, and knows how to pick his shots. It takes a movement heavy skillset and a good ability to be able to see sneaky punches coming to avoid being knocked down by him, and even then, the two movers he's faced at the top level still went down. For that reason, I think he drops most of the top ranked guys, even if he doesn't beat them.

Alright, so, I think he actually beats Okolie and Bakole, and there's pretty much only one way Zhang wins fights so yeah, that answers that. Neither are hard to find and I feel Okolie is very fragile in the chin area, hence his preferred method of... let's be generous and call it "fighting". Zhang's timing skills are good enough he'd catch him coming in for a big ol' hug, I think. Likewise, Bakole's head movement is damn near non existent. Still irks me to no end Zhang passed on this perfectly winnable fight to take the much harder Kabayel matchup, leading to him having his first winless year as a pro (Unless they put together a last minute fight for the year, which given plans to make a fight in China early next year and the Chisora fight falling through, I very much doubt). But hey, can't hate the man for taking challenges.

Don't know enough about Itauma to say yet. All anyone can say right now is he punches hard and he can go six rounds in a pace he was allowed to set. No idea about his chin because he hasn't had it tested yet, and that's a pretty big aspect to consider when picking in a Zhang fight. I don't know. If his brother is anything to go by, I'd say yeah, but that isn't very nice is it

If Zhang and Wardley were to fight next, I'd probably expect Zhang to drop him. Wardley is learning on the job and showing gradual improvements every fight, but he's been buzzed by lesser punchers and still isn't terribly hard to hit. Yeah he's shown an ability to persevere, but there's a big, big difference between surviving a Huni/Parker onslaught and even a single Zhang punch. That said, if he manages to get up from being knocked down, his chances of winning go up exponentially. I love Zhang but he's absolute ass at finishing people off. It's as much a gas tank issue as it is just a seeming lack of killer instinct. But to answer the topic question, yeah I think Zhang at least drops him.

Dubois gets dropped, I believe. Dubois gets too much **** for his losses I think, against Joyce he only took the knee because his ****ing orbital bone broke, and against Usyk the stoppages were from exhaustion, which wouldn't be a factor with Zhang. However, Dubois also got dropped against Kevin Lerena in the first round. Yeah, two of those knockdowns were from him taking a knee due to the leg injury he sustained from the first knockdown, but that one was from a punch. So yeah I could see Zhang dropping him early. Now, does Dubois get up from that to win? I'd say he has a good chance if he's not tired out (he shouldn't be) and nothing is broken.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet on AJ and Fury getting knocked down by Zhang but going on to win. Much like Dubois, AJ is given way too hard of a time for his two stoppage losses. The way some people talk you'd think in both of these fights he got dropped in the first round from nothing punches and went on to just lay down without trying to get up. Fact of the matter is, it took AJ getting dropped four times in both of his stoppage losses to finally be stopped, and in the second case he was still trying to get up, he just couldn't. And yeah, many people will argue til their blue in the face about just how good Fury actually is, but one thing nobody should doubt is that the man has pretty great recovery abilities.

So, do I think Zhang catches both of them? Absolutely, 100%. Do I think he stops them? Probably not. As I already said, the man's ability to finish people off is lackluster. He's basically every boxing movie villain, in that he knocks someone down, goes to his corner celebrating prematurely, then looks back to see them getting up and thinks "Wait, what? No, you're not supposed to do that," and then can't finish them. Put it to you another way, as a Zhang fan I'd full expect to be cheering at one point during these fights, screaming at my TV shortly afterwards and after the fight be saying "If only" a lot.

Usyk... Man, I don't care what anyone says, this is still a dark horse dream fight of mine that I ain't giving up on til they're retired. Maybe til they're in the grave, given all the 90s heavyweights fighting recently I know exactly how the fight goes, but I don't care. They're two of my favorites I'm always gonna tune in for, it'd be cool to see them in a ring together. I can't be the only boxing fan who has a fight like that, one they wanna see despite the foregone conclusion (much as one can be had in boxing, anyways).

Anyways, of all the guys in the top ten, Zhang's the one I give the best chance of dropping Usyk, and even then, it's like a 10% chance if I'm being generous. Zhang would be the biggest puncher Usyk has fought, and his hand speed is a bit underrated. Enough to catch Usyk, and in the right way to floor him? I wouldn't be expecting it to happen, but it would also be the only fight where I wouldn't be surprised if it did happen, if that makes sense.

 

He isn't getting out of the first round himself v Dillian Whyte

 

Yeah I kinda skipped over that part of your post. My bad. Just couldn't pass on the chance to talk up one of my favorites

That said, I agree, criticizing Parker for going down against Zhang is nuts. If anything, it should say something about Zhang's power. Wardley threw some serious leather at Parker yesterday and didn't floor him once. Came damn close several times, but still couldn't do it, whereas Zhang tapped him and he went down.

But hey, accentuating the negative just comes with the territory I reckon

 

Plodding heavies cannot beat Usyk or Fury.

I know Agit is a little bit plodding but atleast he'd try to bodybash Usyk where Wardley is much more vunerable to such a gameplan against Usyk

 

Lean 2015 Fury, Usyk, Hrgo, that's probably it from today's crop.

 

Remember Fury went southpaw at times against Usyk, and for me Usyk was even more effective whenever Fury would go southpaw.

 

I guess I give Usyk the best chance, but Zhang hits so damn hard I'm not confident anyone breaks his streak.