Domination in America, Starting from being a Boxing Champion-Chapter 856 - 615: Breaking into the Finals

Bangkok National Stadium.

After stepping down from the boxing ring, Link received praise and congratulations from the boxing team's coaches and teammates, as well as flattery from a group claiming to be boxing agents and scouts.

These scouts proactively approached him, asking whether he had signed with any agency and what his professional plans were, whether he wanted to go to the United States to box professionally and earn millions or tens of millions of US Dollars per match like Pacquiao, Hoyle, and Tyson?

Link gave a negative response to these inquiries.

The purpose of revealing his strength in this match was indeed to attract the attention of boxing companies and to raise his reputation in the boxing circle.

However, that was all; he had no immediate plans to sign a contract or participate in professional matches.

The reason being he had just risen to fame, and hadn't yet clinched the World Boxing Championship title, signing with an agency at this time would only secure him a cheap contract.

If he were to win the championship and then the Olympic title, having the title of an Olympic champion would raise his fame and attract more attention within the boxing circle. At that time, considering signing with an agency, he would have the opportunity to set terms and sell at a higher price.

Hearing that he had no immediate plans to sign, the agents and scouts weren't discouraged and left their business cards before returning to the sidelines to continue watching the matches.

After the quarterfinals of the 69kg weight class, the matches for other weight classes followed, with the fourth match being the quarterfinals of the 48kg weight class, Zou Shiming versus the Slovakian boxer Rudel.

In this match, Zou Shiming continued to employ his favored pirate boxing tactics to attack the opponent.

Pirate boxing is a variant of guerrilla tactics and falls under the strategy of 'using weakness to overcome strength'.

It's primarily used against 'regular forces', characterized by flexible fighting methods. On the boxing ring, it involves striking and immediately retreating, changing positions with every punch thrown, avoiding the enemy's sharp edge, and steadily depleting the enemy's stamina and patience before seizing an opportunity to defeat the opponent.

This method is quite effective in amateur competitions, as amateur boxing is only concerned with victory, without regard for the spectator's experience.

It's not as effective in professional boxing matches.

On the one hand, professional bouts consist of 12 rounds, and fighting with guerrilla tactics for twelve consecutive rounds is also physically draining.

On the other hand, this evasive fighting style is not visually appealing, leading to poor ticket sales for matches, and PPV earnings wouldn't be high either.

In the quarterfinals of the 48kg weight class, Zou Shiming defeated Rudel with a score of 26 to 19, smoothly advancing to the semifinals.

After a short rest at noon, Link returned to the venue in the afternoon to participate in the semifinals of the 69kg weight class.

There were four boxers left in the semifinals, paired off to fight fiercely against each other, and Link drew Suphachai from the local Thai boxers.

Suphachai, 25 years old, 180 cm tall, with a reach of 182 cm, and weighing 68.3 kg, was once a Muay Thai boxer, who at the age of 22 won the 64kg Muay Thai boxing competition's championship and was known as 'Thailand's toughest man,' enjoying a significant reputation in the Muay Thai community.

During the match, there were many of Suphachai's boxing fans under the ring, loudly cheering him on in Thai.

Suphachai also dabbled as an amateur boxer, with amateur boxing record of 13 fights, 10 wins, and 3 losses.

Link had seen his opponent's quarterfinal, noting that the man had good stamina, resistance to getting hit, an aggressive fighting style, and strong willpower.

But this man was originally a Muay Thai athlete, and Muay Thai's techniques differ greatly from boxing. Muay Thai allows the use of fists, legs, elbows, and knees to attack opponents and is also known as the 'art of eight limbs.'

Muay Thai athletes enhance the power of their elbows and knees during training to maximize damage to enemies.

Whereas, boxing does not allow the use of elbows or knees.

Therefore, there are significant differences between the two sports in the approach to offense, and in the muscle groups utilized when exerting force.

This difference causes the opponent to be prone to foul play during the match; because it was the opponent's home turf, he was not disqualified.

Additionally, Suphachai's punch power was not strong, and his foundation in combination punches was poor. He also liked to evade during the match and would run after throwing a punch.

There's a safe way and an aggressive way to deal with this kind of boxer.

The safe tactic is to fight steadily and guard rigorously, gradually wearing down the opponent's energy before finding an opportunity to defeat them.

This method is safe, but not efficient, and tends to be slow.

Since Link desired to make a name for himself during the World Championships, he must display more of his strength during the match and decisively defeat his opponents.

After the match started, Suphachai initiated the attack on him, swinging his fists towards his head, hands alternating strikes, and as Link raised his hands to defend, the opponent took the chance to bump him a few times with his elbow.

The referee made no indication of this.

Link did not submit a protest either, and after nimbly dodging the opponent's attacks several times, he seized an opportunity to close the distance and landed a punch in the opponent's abdomen.

Suphachai did indeed live up to the name of Thailand's toughest man, his muscles were not abundant, but they were extremely solid, like a slab of iron.

Link's punch only caused the opponent to slightly retreat half a step, and didn't force the opponent to redirect his defensive focus to the chest and abdomen.

The opponent counter-attacked, Link sidestepped, and with greater speed swung out his fists, hitting the opponent's left ribs again.

The formidable power of the punch made the opponent grunt, and uncontrollably step back.

Link closed in fast, following up with another punch to the opponent's abdomen. Suphachai dropped his arms to defend and blocked Link's punch. The first punch of the combination missed, but Link continued with a second blow from below, catching his opponent's chin by surprise.

The opponent's mouth emitted a cracking sound upon impact, his head quickly tilting backward, sweat from his hair being flung as he staggered back against the ropes.

Link took a large step forward, quickly closing in on the opponent, his fists alternating blows, heavily smashing into the opponent's arms, abdomen, chin, and face. In three seconds, he threw more than ten punches, first breaking down the opponent's defense, and the last few punches solidly hit the opponent's head.

One of the punches hit the opponent's nose bridge, causing a nosebleed.

The opponent hugged his head with both arms, crouching down on the ground after being hit.

"Stop!"

The referee came over to stop Link from continuing his attack.

Link stepped back, flinging the blood droplets and sweat off his gloves.

"Link is so cool."

"This is boxing, real boxing."

Down below, Zou Shiming and several teammates from the boxing team shouted excitedly.

This was an amateur boxing match, with both sides wearing sponge headgear. Due to the dual protection of gloves and headgear, it was not easy to injure the opponent.

Yet when it came to Link, he knocked someone out in the last match, and in this round, he caused his opponent's nose to bleed.

Too fierce.

Zou Shiming also wanted to box like Link, but unfortunately, his strength did not allow it.

"Old Zhao, did you teach Link this fighting style? I remember you prefer using the 'boiling frog' strategy, wearing down the opponent bit by bit. How come there's such a sudden change in style now?"

Coach Zhang Chuanliang asked.

"Uh, haha, I told Link before that he didn't need to care about tactics in a match. As long as he can win, any tactics could be used," Coach Zhao Liwei replied with a dry laugh.

On the boxing ring, the coach asked Suberk whether he wanted to continue the match.

Suberk indicated that he would continue.

The Thai audience below also shouted loudly to cheer him on.

The fight between Link and his opponent hadn't even started when the first round ended.

After a minute's rest, Link and his opponent stood on the boxing ring again, with his opponent's nose bridge treated, the bleeding stopped, and aside from some red swelling, it didn't look too serious.

Once the second round started, Link chose to continue attacking, while his opponent protected his face with both fists and kept dodging, moving very nimbly.

But no matter how nimbly he dodged, he did not have the flexibility of Link's footwork, nor the speed of Link's punches.

Link threw punches and drove his opponent to the ropes, using rope-a-dope tactics. With punches up and down, Link broke through Suberk's defense in just eight punches, hitting his opponent's face and chin again.

Before he could continue to attack, Suberk's coach threw in the white towel, choosing to concede the match.

The match had just reached the second round and Link already showed an overwhelming strength against Suberk. Continuing the fight seemed pointless.

After Suberk got up, he also chose to concede.

Link defeated his opponent again, advancing smoothly to the final, competing against British boxer Martin Murray for the gold medal.

This was also the first time a male Huaxia boxer made it into the final of the World Boxing Championship. On the women's side, Huaxia's female boxer Zhang Mao Mao had won a 57KG category championship at the 2001 World Championship.

After leaving the ring, Link received more congratulations from the coaching team and teammates, and some from boxing promotion companies approached him with offers, willing to increase their bid to sign him.

However, the highest bid among them was only $200,000 signing bonus, which couldn't spark his interest.

——

"Sean, aren't you going to talk to Link?"

In the spectator seats, promotional person Dmitry Salita from the competitive room promotion company asked.

Promoter Sean Gibbons, watching Link amidst the crowd, bit his lip, "Let's wait a bit longer! If Link is smart, he wouldn't choose to sign a contract at this stage."

"I hope he's smart. With his skills and image, if he joins a major promotion company, he'll be another Asian cruiserweight like Pacquiao," Dmitry Salita said.

"He might be even stronger than Pacquiao," Sean Gibbons said.

"Oh? Do you think he could be compared to Pacquiao?" Dmitry Salita asked in surprise.

Philippine star Pacquiao entered the professional boxing world in '95, currently holding a professional record of 40 wins, 2 losses, and 1 draw, the reigning IBF-WBO lightest-weight World Boxing Champion and one of the stars in the lightweight category.

"Yes, the power, speed, and tactics he's showing in the boxing ring are top-level even in the professional boxing world. Don't forget, he's only 18 and has tremendous potential for improvement," Sean Gibbons said.

"Indeed very impressive," Salita said, eyes heating up as he watched Link. He immediately reported to Barry Hearn, the boss of the competitive room promotion company, after the finals, claiming that he had seen a very promising boxer at the World Championship, worthy of investment.

Barry Hearn said that he would make decisions on contracts under $500,000, trusting his judgement.

After finishing the call, Salita heard his old friend Shawn Gibbons also making a call to top promoter Bob Arum, but he just smiled indifferently and wasn't worried about competing with top promotion companies, knowing that in the boxing promotion field, competitive room promotion may not be inferior to the top ones.