Roach: You’ll see Shiming with more power in this fight

By Boxing News - 07/15/2014 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach believes that he has #6 WBA flyweight contender Zou Shiming (4-0, 1 KOs) punching with more power as he heads into his 10 round fight this Saturday night against Luis De la Rosa (23-3-1, 13 KO’s) for the vacant WBO International flyweight title at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.

Shiming, 33, is a two-time Olympic gold medalist from China from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. However, a lot of boxing fans felt that Shiming was beaten in both of those Olympics.

Roach said “In this fight, you’ll see Shiming with much more power.”

In saying that Shiming will have more power, you have to wonder how much more power Roach is talking about. If it’s just 1% more power then that’s going to be enough for him to compete against flyweight world champions like Juan Francisco Estrada, Akira Yaegashi, Amnat Ruenroeng or Juan Carlos Reveco. Those guys can do everything Shiming can do but with much more power.

If Roach is going to help Shiming win a world title, he’s going to need dramatic improvements in his punching power. He’s going to need at least 80-90% increase in power for him not to be toyed with by the likes of Estrada, and I don’t think it’s physically possible to increase a fighter’s power when they’re 33 like Shiming.

Shiming doesn’t have the power that two-time Olympic gold medalist Vasyl Lomachenko has, and that’s why it’s not an easy task to move Shiming up quickly the way that Top Rank did with Lomachenko. Shiming is also up there in age at 33, so he’s going to need to be moved up soon whether they feel he’s ready or not to fight for a world title.

Roach is trying to develop some power with him, but as of last February, Shiming’s power was still totally missing. He did stop Yokthong KKP in the 7th round, but this guy had already been stopped twice within 2 rounds recently by little known opposition. The fact that it took Shiming, a two-time Olympic gold medalist 7 rounds to stop the 19-year-old KKP wasn’t a good sign.



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