Just hours after they fought for the first time on the undercard of Anthony Joshua versus Francis Ngannou, there has now been a big update on a potential rematch between Zhilei Zhang and Joseph Parker.
Zhang started the fight well and landed cleanly on Parker, knocking him down twice in the early rounds. But Parker stuck to the game plan and began boxing well, moving around the ring and picking Zhang off from distance.
Zhang’s co-manager Terry Lane spoke to Sky Sports to give the update but started with some praise for Parker.
“Firstly, our whole team wants to congratulate team Parker and Andy Lee for executing a perfect game plan for fighting Zhilei. Parker is a seasoned veteran and he surely showed it Friday night. The momentum that he has right now is incredible.”
He then said that Zhang wanted another go and had a contractual rematch clause that he could enact.
“I think Zhilei wants the rematch. From my perspective, if you take a step back and look at the big picture, what is going on now in the heavyweight division is really exciting.
It is reminiscent of eras past when there were a number of top, high-profile, world-class big men who kept fighting each other to the benefits of boxing fans. Styles make fights, and it is very nuanced.
Zhang beats Joyce, who lost to Parker? Surely Zhang beats Parker, right? Wrong. A beats B, B beats C, then A beats C? Not in boxing. It’s more of a game of Paper, Rock, Scissors where each beats one and loses the other.
Having said that, Zhilei can make the adjustments, win more rounds and go on to other things.”
Whether or not Parker was to go again is unclear, but he might well want to move on to different challenges and keep his super current run of form going.