Great fight and the one I was hoping for Bakole to have next. Slightly favour Zhang but as close to a good 50-50 you will get. Really hope it happens.
Good fight. No chance it goes 12 rounds. Bakole looks decent but hittable. Which I suppose goes for all the heavyweights really.
A repeat of Zhang vs Joyce. Bakole is a plodder with no defense and we all see what happened to Joyce when he got hit clean by Zhang and Joyce has an above average chin aswell. You can't fight Zhang aggressively with no defense he hits too accurately top hard.
Joyce has an incredible chin. Above average! Good grief. I could see it going the way you say, though. But Zhang is so old and his stamina is rubbish. He's on a downward trajectory.
Zhang could age over night so that concerns me. But assuming Zhang is in the same form vs Bakole I can't see a plodder with no defense beating Zhang we already see it with Joyce who has good chin as you said. Even Parker who fought a smart fight and has a good chin himself was floored by glancing blows from Zhang. Zhang has that Foreman type power where he don't even look like hes putting much effort into his punches and still hits incredibly hard.
Totally agree. I'm not sure how hard Bakole punches. I think he punches hard, but not sure how hard. I would imagine that Zhang punches harder. Bakole has much better stamina. He can put punches together well. Zhang comes across as quite a smart guy. It's an amazing match.
No way this fight goes to points, neither man has the footspeed to last the distance without getting smashed and Zhang doesn`t have the stamina to go the distance in a brawl type match up, I pick Zhang, he`s proven at the higher level, the Chinese crowd will provide more atmosphere than a Saudi crowd would.
I like Zhang but I'm backing my man Bakole like I did when he obliterated that Anderson. No fence sitting Bakole KO
I think we see a thinking man’s Bakole who boxes off the back foot lol. Bakole is probably better when he doesn’t think lol. Think this ends with a big Bang from Zhang in 5 or 6 rounds.
I think Bakole is a better boxer and more nuanced than many think. Some of the bombs he 'ate' in the Anderson fight he actually rode to an extent, he seems to turn his head very late and take the sting out of a lot of shots with his forearms and shoulders. I really liked his ability to out together sharp, strange looking punches, he almost has a Ruddock style 'smash' but thrown as a range finder uppercut jab hybrid rather than a monster power shot. I think this will work well against Zhang early. Bakole has the engine to box behind an offensive defence whereas Zhang has one speed, he's like a truck left with its emergency brake off slowly trundling down an incline either trashing everything in its way or rolling to a harmless halt!! Great fight, genuine 50/50 but I suspect Bakole outboxes and drowns Zhang in the deeper, later rounds...
