China's two-time Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming notched his third professional victory on Sunday, delivering on the promise of his stellar amateur career and the investment made in him by those seeking to unlock the commercial promise of boxing in China.
It was the third professional fight for Zou, but where the previous two had largely failed to convince, he showed off more of his talent with a defeat of Juan Tozcano of Mexico in a six-round flyweight bout on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios fight at The Venetian casino in Macau.
Zou though was a hard marker, saying if it had been an amateur fight, he would have given himself an eight out of 10, but as a pro fight, he gave himself only a five.
''I want to deliver a knockout and there's so many things that I can learn from watching Manny's fight,'' he said.
''Amateur is all about winning. It's all about getting the gold medal, but as a pro boxer I not only need to win, but I need to win it with excitement and entertainment,'' Zou said. ''Hopefully I can deliver that to everybody.''
Zou and Pacquiao share the same trainer, the celebrated Freddie Roach. Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank sees the 32-year-old Zou as the great hope for opening up the largely untapped boxing market in China. The sport was banned in China until the mid-1980s.
Arum said Top Rank plans three events in Macau next year and one in Singapore, and Zou is likely to be on most if not all of them.
Roach had said pre-fight that Zou needed to move away from the point-scoring punching style of amateur boxing, drive through his punches more and be more aggressive, and he met those demands well. He continually pressed forward against Tozcano and during the third round, the fight was paused briefly so a doctor could check a large gash that opened up under the Mexican's right eye.
''My team has been working on the strength and the power of my shots,'' Zou said. ''Today hopefully showed a good starting, a good foundation, but still there's a lot of things for me to learn from great boxers such as Manny. You saw my progress. Hopefully there's a lot more improvement i can make.''
