‘Dr Sleep’ : I got dropped by Anthony Joshua and fought Joseph Parker but nobody hit me harder than ‘Dr Sleep’
Zhilei Zhang has gone toe-to-toe with some massive punchers – but one stands out above the rest.
‘Big Bang’ returns to action on February 22 in a WBC interim heavyweight title fight against Agit Kabayel on the Artur Beterbiev vs Dmitry Bivol II undercard in Saudi Arabia.
It comes eight months after he flattened a timid Deontay Wilder in a low-output affair.
Wilder landed just 16 of his 95 punches during the contest and appeared hesitant to let his hands go throughout.
The former WBC heavyweight spent the majority of the fight with his back against the ropes and didn’t open up until the ill-fated fifth stanza where he was stunned and then knocked out by two punishing lead hooks.
Despite this, Zhang revealed to talkSPORT.com that nobody has hit him harder than ‘Dr Sleep’.
“Right now it is Deontay Wilder,” he said during an exclusive interview.
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“He hits very hard, I got caught with a big punch in the fifth round but I managed to take it and knock him out.”
This is high praise coming from Zhang, who has fought the likes of Joseph Parker and Joe Joyce in the pros as well as Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr during his amateur days.
AJ famously dropped and defeated Zhang in the quarter-finals of the London 2012 Olympics en route to winning gold in the English capital.
The Watford powerhouse was heavily linked to a two-fight deal with Tyson Fury in 2025.
But after suffering back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk, ‘The Gypsy King’ opted to retire from the sport for the fourth time, thus putting an all-British showdown with Joshua on ice.
Joshua’s promoters are now scrambling to find him an opponent for the summer whilst Zhang has put his name forward.
“Who knows what to make of Fury [retiring],” he added.
“If Joshua wants to fight me after the Kabayel fight then we can talk.
“He hasn’t wanted to rematch me before, let’s see about now.”
