With his mandatory out of the way Parker should fight Zhilei Zhang of China next. . . .Zhang was an accomplished amateur twice representing China in the Olympics and medaling once. He is now undefeated at 18-0 and ranked by the WBO which makes him eligible to fight. He is 6'-6" and is a southpaw. Their styles and experience would make a great and compelling match.
Would prefer this to a fight with Fujimoto by a large margin.... Zhang is untested but he's got amateur pedigree and is regional.
already seen Jennings vs klitchko and Ortiz though.. so to me its pointless hes been inactive and won't even be as good asthen... atleast with zhilei he might surprise us.
agreed. have the fight take place in China. I'm sure Parker could make good money there and get a lot of exposure. I mean, how often do we get a heavyweight from China fighting for a world title? it could be a big event, in China anyways.
Yeah, but Jennings gave a very good account of himself in those fights despite coming up short in addition to having wins over Szpilka, Perez and Fedosov. Thus being the more proven professional operator. So he definitely has more merit for fighting Parker than Zhang, although as you said it would still be interesting to see how that went down.
Not keen. Parker has fought too many risky fights against relative unknown or unproven fighters which mean that he has possibly had much harder fights than people realise and not getting the due credit for wins. He needs to beat someone people KNOW are a good win, and/or blast someone out just to remind himself and others than he can and he's just been fighting people that ANYONE would struggle to blast out.
The population of China is greater than the U.S. and Europe COMBINED. Believe me, Zhang is more well known there.
I agree with you here. I'm sure Wilder would struggle with Fury, Ruiz & Takam big time. he already struggles with tomato cans like Washington & Nichols lol
Yes, but looking at it from the "UK, US and Europe" angle where you are also angling for future fights - Zhang is another potential risk who is unknown to the casuals etc which was my point. MOST UK etc fans won't have heard of him, if Parker labours against him then the UK market which he wants to break into will be like "Meh he struggled with some chinese guy I've never heard of, he's a bum"
If Parker can beat Zhilei he has set up for a zillion dollar payday against Junlong Zhang who is 18-0 (18 KOs) in China.. . . .A fight against Jennings is a tough one and a step sideways fight.