The prospects for Zou Shiming as a professional boxer are irrelevant. Whether or not he will ever be a pound for pound great, or hell even recognized as a “real” world champion (a term I use loosely because at this stage of the game anyone and everyone can have a title belt if they so choose) is completely beside the point. Zou Shiming is good for boxing, period, end of discussion. How do I know this? Because Shiming headlined his second “Fists of Gold” boxing card in Macau, China to a packed house fighting a six rounder against Jesus Ortega who was 3-1. Professional boxing in 2013 has very few legitimate seat sellers; fighters who can pack a house are few and far between so when one comes along, the fact that he might not be a future pound for pound great is irrelevant.
On this night Shiming cruised past Ortega winning a unanimous six round decision. This should not be a surprise; the 32 year old Shiming is a 2-time Olympic gold medalist. He should be blowing out guys like Ortega, actually the fact that both of Shiming’s first two fights went to the scorecards is a dangerous sign for his long term prospects. In my opinion Shiming doesn’t compare favorably to other recent Olympic champions turned professional pugilists. He doesn’t have the rugged power of Andre Ward or the blinding speed of Guillermo Rigondeaux. That being said, Shiming has a permanent home on HBO because he’s a super-duper star in China and will sell out the Venetian in Macau whenever he fights. Rigondeaux couldn’t sell out a phone booth and won’t find himself back on television anytime soon unless he happens to get one of those seats near Bob Arum on a televised Top Rank card.
Ultimately it’s tough to draw any conclusions from a 6 round fight – but Shiming is 32 years old, his window is very limited (and there are those who would argue that it’s already closed). So, if you’re in the business of boxing to make money, then Shiming is doing everything right. He has a good team in his corner so it’s obvious that he’s trying to get better so that he can get into bigger fights and thus make more money, but he also much be cognizant of the fact that he can continue to fight nobodies in Macau for good money and never really have to challenge himself. I don’t know which road he’ll go down, but watching him take flush shots from someone as limited as Ortega leads me to believe that his best chance of financial success is a road less littered with professional accolades.
As has been the case with cards headlined by Shiming, Top Rank loaded this show up with two world title fights leading into the six round main event. In the co-featured bout of the night WBO and WBA flyweight champion Juan Francisco Estrada won a decision over Milan Melindo with scores of 118-109, 118-109 and 117-109. Estrada was just relentless with his pressure and wore the Filipino challenger down. In the other televised bout IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich who trains out of Oxnard, California and calls himself the Russian Mexican continued his impressive break on the scene with a pretty easy unanimous decision 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109. Gradovich as you may recall took the belt from Billy Dib earlier this year and continues to impress. He lacks true knockout power but he is a machine with a relentless offense that just never stops coming forward. The undercard, though lopsided was worth watching in its own right because both of the undercard fights were solid with impressive performances by the respective champions
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