By Chris Williams: ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas believes that Top Rank fighter flyweight Zou Shiming (1-0) is going to need to be carefully matched for him to succeed in the pro game after watching his less than impressive performance against the light hitting inexperienced 18-year-old Eleazar Valenzuela (2-2-2, 1 KO’s) last Saturday night in a fight that was televised by HBO from Macao, China.
Atlas doesn’t say specifically why the 32-year-old Shiming needs to be carefully matched but one can guess that Atlas doesn’t see the talent there for Shiming to succeed at the highest rungs of the pro game unless he’s maneuvered around dangerous guys.
Atlas says he doesn’t like the idea of watching Shiming fight because he doesn’t have much power and he’s someone that is going to be winning by a decision more often than not.
Atlas may have to get used to watching Shiming fight because Arum is likely going to continue to have all of his future fights televised in the United States as well as China as co-feature bouts. It’s highly doubtful that HBO will step up and say they don’t want to televise Shiming’s fights and that prefer a bigger, stronger and more exciting fighter to televise in co-feature bouts on their network. It just looks like Shiming’s fights are going to continue to be televised to U.S fans on HBO whether Atlas likes it or not.
Atlas said to ESPN” “You know I was calling his fights in the Olympics. To be honest with you, I thought he [Shiming] got a gift in getting those gold medals. In Beijing, in front of his home people, and in the last Olympics in London, but in watching him the other night, I saw a guy where one of the first things they make sure of is they have a good matchmaker. They put an 18-year-old kid in there that couldn’t punch and that was right in front of him that he could do what he wanted to and he could do this, and you know what? I don’t want to see that. If George Foreman is doing it, maybe I’ll watch it. I don’t mind because at the end I’m going to see a knockout and I’ll stick around. But if I see a 108 pound guy and he can’t punch, guess what? I’m not going to set aside time on my Saturday afternoon or Saturday night to watch that, but they have the power behind them and obviously they’re going to match him properly. I guess you’re asking me if he has a viable future…If he’s connected and you keep him connected to that massive Chinese audience in China and the massive Chinese over here in this country, and you keep doing things with the Chinese government, then of course, yes, he can be viable; he can make money. Why do you think Bob Arum got involved? Bob Arum got involved, and always gets involved, for one thing – for the money. He knows it makes sense for him from the financial standpoint to be in business with the Chinese government, but he better make sure, I know he’s paying Zou a lot of money – $300 thousand for this fight, $500 thousand supposedly for his next fight – he better pay that matchmaker a good amount of money to keep the right opponents coming.”
Comments are closed.