Editor’s note: Zhenyu Li, is a sportswriter for the People’s Daily in China, one of the most influential and authoritative newspaper in that nation with circulation of over 3 million. Zhenyu Li lives and works Beijing, covering the NBA and boxing for his paper online. One of the most popular sportswriters in his country he is the only reporter who writes both in English and Chinese, as well as broadcasting the English Sports News for the People’s Daily. Li is a former amateur athlete specializing in long-distance running. A graduate of Beijing Institute of Technology with a B.A. in Management, he is the son of a former Deputy Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Toronto and the former Counselor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. Li acquired his Business English Certificate from Cambridge University.
–The Journey To Blossom– At the time when China was still on its journey to the blossom, embracing the world with open attitudes, there was one man who unnoticingly and unconsciously brought western cultures to his home. Western boxing is one of the cultures that he brought.
This 40-something man who was a huge sports addict was at the time working as a senior diplomat. During his tenure in Barbados as the acting ambassador in 1987, he became friends with an American diplomatic officer who happened to be a huge boxing fan and had boxing experience. He recommended this Chinese diplomat watch some boxing matches. After watching several fights, the Chinese diplomat was gradually attracted by this bloody but stimulating sport.
What converted him from a casual viewer to a hardcore boxing fan was an epic battle between two prime middleweight champions, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns. He had never seen and imagined a boxing match fought in such an exhilarating and heart-breaking fashion. From then on, the Chinese diplomat began his true love affairs with boxing and it has never ever stopped.
Because of his dedication to his country and work, he chose to marry at a relatively old age and had one boy. This boy was born to be a troublemaker who always whipped other kindergartners purely for the purpose of fun. He watched numerous Chinese Kung Fu films and was immersed in them. But film is just film. It’s a artificial pre-arranged fight, which became less of an interest to this naughty boy.
One day, when this naughty boy came back from primary school, he found himself totally captivated by the scene shown on the TV, two muscular warrior trading punches under the flame of the crowds. It was a videocassette brought by his father from the United States, the Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier trilogy.
20 years later, in front of his TV screen the Ali – Frazier fight was still on, same fight, same place, but not the same viewer. He finished the evolution from a naughty boy to a professional sports columnist who is now writing this article.
As a Chinese boxing writer, I am here today to lead you to the inside boxing world of this exotic ancient nation.
Let’s start off with a small number – one. That is the total number of Olympic boxing medals China has captured in its history. Shiming Zou, currently the most popular boxer in China who won the first and only Olympic boxing medal for China at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Let me show you another number – 1.3 billion. That is the total population of China, which is the largest in the world and five times the size of the United States. What does it means, one medal and 1.3 billion people. It means a huge potential market, a large pool of potential talent and audience and numerous business opportunities.
China Central Television, China’s largest national TV network has been broadcasting boxing matches every week since 2000. According to the investigation of an independent third party, this program has garnered a readership of over 20 million loyal readers throughout China and the audience rating of this program ranked the 2nd last year among all the daylight programs shown on CCTV.
As you can see, the majority of Chinese boxing fans view boxing matches on CCTV, but they also read magazines and check some Chinese-language boxing websites.
The sports channel of CCTV is the main source for Chinese boxing fans to watch the visual scene of western boxing matches. Besides watching matches on TV, they also need to know some behind-the-scene story of each match broadcast on television, so they’d go to read the magazines to get the whole pictures of each match. If they want to know the latest news, they would log on to some of the Chinese-language boxing websites.
Boxing is a sport that builds a bridge between people. The typical way for Chinese boxing fans to watch a live boxing show is by inviting a friend or two to their homes and sharing every exciting moment with their friends. This way, the joy that a boxing match is tripled.
Now, we have got a general picture of Chinese boxing market and know something about the element of this market – the Chinese boxing fans. The next question is who is hot in China right now?
Floyd Mayweather Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Manny Pacquiao and Wladimir Klitschko are all household names among Chinese boxing fans.
However, to articulate it in a Chinese accent, there are also some fighters that I can’t stand. John Ruiz, for example, I dislike him not only because of his fatty appearance, but also because of his boxing styles — burrow in, throw one punch at a time, grab, wrestle, and hold, although it’s not a bad style for winning.
Other than Ruiz, there are also some other fighters that annoy me. James Toney, a blown-up middleweight who fights under the name of heavyweight, Nicolay Valuev, a monster-size freak with questionable power, and Naseem Hamed, a cocky talented fighter but lacking consistency and durability.
Since the decline of the heavyweight division, I switched my interest to other divisions. Welterweight, middleweight and light heavyweight have become several of my favorite divisions. There are a number of talented athletes including Mayweather, Mosley, De La Hoya, Roy Jones Jr., Bernard Hopkins etc. Further more, you can see a combination of skill, power and dexterity in those three divisions.
Because of that, fighters that I admire most are mainly from those three divisions. Oscar de la Hoya, Shane Mosley and Roy Jones Jr. are three of my most beloved fighters in the past. Other fighters that I respected are Evander Holyfield, Erik Morales, Felix Trinidad and George Foreman. Ultimately you respect a fighter not because of his physical appearances, but because of his spiritual tenaciousness, his bravery to take risks and his strong will to challenge limitations.
Boxing is a sport without borders. The spirit of boxing applies to all the nations on this planet. With the martial arts traditions, which stretch back for millennia and a vast pool of potential athletic talent, can the nation that produced NBA superstar Yao Ming also produce the next Manny Pacquiao? Well, it is all part of the journey to blossom.
