Zou Shiming vs. Jesus Ortega on July 27h in Macao, China

By Boxing News - 06/02/2013 - Comments

shiming3By Chris Williams: Former two time Olympic Gold medalist flyweight Zou Shiming (1-0) will be making his second appearance at the pro level on July 27th in this Top Rank promoted card against Jesus Ortega (3-1, 2 KO’s) in a scheduled 6 round fight at the Venetian Casino & Resort, in Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.

The 32-year-old Shiming is projected to be a world champion by 2014 by his trainer Freddie Roach. However, in looking at how little power he had in his pro debut last April, it’s difficult to picture Shiming wining even a non-world title.

Shiming struggled to beat 18-year-old Eleazar Valenzuela in winning a four round unanimous decision, and there was nothing in that performance that suggests that Shiming will be anything more than a fringe contender the best of circumstances. He was too easy for the 18-year-old Valenzuela to hit and he slapped too much with his punches.

Shiming’s promoter Bob Arum is really high on the guy. However, if Arum wants to keep Shiming on the winning tract he’s going to have to keep matching him against 3rd tier opposition because if he moves him up against someone with power, he’s going to likely have problems.

Shiming has had a long amateur career where the fighters are mainly interested in scoring points in short four round fights. Going from four to twelve round fights is going to be a huge step up for a fighter like Shiming because he can’t punch and he gets hit way too much.

Arum would be better off just keeping Shiming as an attraction the undercards for his pay per view fights headlined by Manny Pacquiao. Arum can probably put Shiming in with anyone and Chinese audiences will likely still watch the fights.

If Arum makes the mistake of putting Shiming in with someone good, I see it going badly for him with Shiming getting knocked out. Somehow, I don’t see Arum doing that. I think he’ll be very, very careful with the guys he matches Shiming with. If he does have him fight for a world title someday, it’ll likely be a paper champion rather than a guy with a ton of talent.

There had been talk of Shiming possibly fighting Brian Viloria in 2014 for the WBO flyweight title, but with Viloria getting easily handled by Juan Francisco Estrada, that’s not going to happen. Arum would be making a huge mistake if he were to put Shiming in with Estrada because this guy would tear him apart and likely knock him out.

Here are the fights on the Shiming-Ortega card on July 27th:

Juan Francisco Estrada vs. Milan Melindo

Evgeny Gradovich vs. Mauricio Javier Munoz

Andy Ruiz Jr. vs. Joe Hanks

Genesis Servania vs. Konosuke Tomiyama

Paul Fleming vs. Mike Tawatchai

Dodie Boy Penalosa Jr vs. TBA

Dave Penalosa vs. TBA



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