Anthony Joshua is facing another stern test in his quest to unify the heavyweight division, with undefeated Chinese boxer, Zhang Zhilei, calling out the Brit insisting he wants to fight him in Beijing next year.
Zhilei stands at a mammoth 6ft 6in and has a current undefeated record of 23-0-0.
Having recently defeated American Craig Lewis within six minutes on the undercard of George Kambosos’ win over Teofimo Lopez, he is keen to seek revenge on Joshua following their previous contest.
Joshua defeated Zhang in their amateur days as he waltzed towards a gold medal with victory over him in the quarterfinals at the 2012 Olympics in London.
As reported by FightMag, the 38-year-old would relish any chance to face off against the 32-year-old again.
“I would love to fight AJ in China because of our amateur backgrounds,” he began.
“The venue is there, the Bird’s Nest holds 100,000, so we have it all. Beijing and Shanghai are the biggest cities, very economically developed and boxing in China is growing.
“The sports fans there like boxing, they like AJ, so if we can make it happen it would be huge for boxing.”
With plans already being drawn up for the rematch between Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk later next year, the heavyweight division hots up once again given the ongoing current conflict between both Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte.
But with Zhang also part of Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing – the same promoter Joshua has – a battle between the two may be targeted at some point. Joshua remains keen on an all-British bout against Fury but will have to win back his belts from Usyk first.
