Zhang Zhilei said he knew his punches were hurting Deontay Wilder from the second round of their fight last Saturday night in Riyadh.
Zhang, the former WBO interim heavyweight champion, was trying to force Wilder into going his own way by cutting the ring, which wouldn't have been an issue if Wilder had been aggressive and throwing punches, but he was fighting defensively.
Zhang (27-2-1, 22 KOs) said he realized Wilder (43-4-1, 42 KOs) was hurt because his eyes were not focused. Zhang continued to hurt Wilder with strikes in the third and fourth rounds, finally finishing off the “confused” former WBC heavyweight champion in the fifth round.
Learn and Improve
“The Hrgovic fight. I believe in it and I tell everyone that on paper I lost, but I think I won the fight. It's on my record. I learned from the fight and I came back even stronger,” Zhan Zielei told BoxNation about his loss to Filip Hrgovic in 2022.
Zhang looked to be in good form after his fight with Hrgovic until last March, but weighed in at 291 pounds going into his bout with Joseph Parker, too heavy for a 12-round bout.
“Since the Hrgovic fight, I have taken big steps. I have learned and grown. After the Parker fight, I continued to learn and grow. Every time something frustrating happens, I make myself stronger. This is how I behave both inside and outside the ring,” Chan continued.
Wilder knockout
“It all happened in the second round. I landed a big punch on him in the second round. I could see his eyes were unfocused, so I knew I landed a big punch in the second round,” said Zhang, of his damage against Deontay Wilder in the second round last Saturday night.
In the second round, Zhang backed Wilder into the ropes and landed some hard punches that drew his attention. Wilder held on as the punches didn't land with full force, but the look on his face showed he was in shock.
“I did the same thing in the third round, so I did the same thing in the fourth round because I knew I had hurt him,” Zhang said. “When I caught him with a right hook, [in round five]He was disoriented, so he was looking back. I got dressed and finished up.”
What was odd was that Wilder threw the right punch while moving to the right, and his feet weren't locked in place as he threw the punch. Wilder's punch looked awkward, but it opened up an opening for Zhang's right hook that sent Wilder spinning, before Zhang landed another right punch that knocked Wilder down.
“Wilder wasn't trying to move in a particular direction,” Chang said, “and I led him in that direction because I saw him moving to my left, his right, and he was looking to counter my straight left. He was trading punches with me and looking to counter my straight left, and I wasn't going to let him do that.”
“I blocked him and let him go the other way. I'm telling you, he still has power. He was throwing big right punches in the first few rounds. I was able to catch them, but I felt the power in my gloves.”
Wilder's right punch to Zhang's head in the fifth round was landed with his feet open, and he was moving too much and relaxing before landing the punch to give himself a chance to hurt Zhang.
“In the fifth round he landed two right hands, one of them hit me right on the top of my forehead. I felt it,” Chang said of Wilder.
