By Charles Brun: Dereck Chisora has started campaigning for a fight against WBO interim heavyweight champion Zhilei Zhang after watching him at ringside for his third round liquidation of Joe Joyce last Saturday night at the OVO Arena in London.
It would end badly for the easy-to-hit, slurring Chisora to tangle with Zhang, as he would likely get blown out in the first round.
If Zhang puts his foot on the accelerator in round one, Chisora will be meteor dust, and fans will be furious over the quick ending.
A good fight for Chisora would be for him to face the 38-year-old Joe Joyce or Daniel Dubois. Those would be mildly entertaining match-ups, as Joyce & Dubois need a pick-me-up right now, and feeding them Chisora would be just what the doctor ordered.
Zhang is targeting WBC champion Tyson Fury or Anthony Joshua next rather than stooping to the level of fighting the played-out second-tier 39-year-old journeyman Chisora.
Unfortunately, Zhang will probably come up empty with his hopes of fighting Fury or Joshua, as those two share one thing in common, and that’s their lack of desire to face Zhilei.
Zhang’s promoter at Queensberry needs to find him a live body to face next because it would be a huge disappointment for the fans if he winds up facing Chisora next, who has lost four out of his last six fights and looked utterly shot.
“I said, ‘I want Zhang,’” said Dereck Chisora to iFL TV when asked what he was talking to promoter Frank Warren about last Saturday night after Zhilei Zhang’s third round knockout win over Joe Joyce.
“We’ll talk about it. We’re going to get Eddie Hearn to deliver it. It’ll be a long night, but I’ll beat Zhang. I like southpaws.
“Give him Daniel Dubois,” said Chisora when asked where Joyce should go from here. “Him and Dubois is a great fight.”
Fury threw Chisora a bone by giving him a title shot last December, despite the fact that he’d been beaten in three out of his last four fights. The boxing public lashed Fury nonstop over his choice of Chisora to defend his WBC title, but Tyson is beyond caring what fans think.
Fury is fat, wealthy, set for life, and is showing that he’s only interested in taking easy fights from this point forward until he retires.
But that doesn’t mean Zhang is going to follow him and give Chisora an undeserved chance to fight for his WBO interim belt because the fight won’t do anything for his credibility or increase his popularity.
In fact, it would likely hurt Zhang’s popularity, and that’s not good because he hasn’t made the kind of money that Fury has.
Chisora (34-13, 23 KOs) point blank asked Zhang (26-1-1,21 KOs) for a fight against him and was turned down by the powerful two-time Chinese Olympian, who told him he needed to get in line.
