Chapter 615: Reaching the Finals

Bangkok National Stadium.

After Link stepped down, he was praised and congratulated by the boxing team coach and teammates, and a group of people who claimed to be boxing agents and scouts.

These scouts took the initiative to find him and asked him if he had signed a contract with an agency, what plans he had for his career, and whether he wanted to go to the United States to play professional boxing and earn millions or tens of millions of dollars per game like Pacquiao, De La Hoya, and Tyson?

Link gave negative answers to all these questions.

The purpose of his active exposure of his strength in this game was indeed to attract the attention of the boxing company and improve his reputation in the boxing circle.

But that's all. He has no plans to sign a contract for the time being, nor does he plan to play professional games.

The reason is that he has just become famous and has not even won the World Boxing Championship. At this time, signing with an agency can only get a cheap contract.

If he wins the championship and the Olympic championship, and has the title of Olympic champion, he will be more famous in the boxing world and receive more attention. At that time, if he considers signing a contract again, he will have the opportunity to put forward conditions and wait for the price.

Hearing that he had no plans to sign a contract for the time being, the agents and scouts were not discouraged. They left their business cards and returned to the sidelines to continue watching the game.

After the 69kg quarter-finals, the other weight classes continued. In the fourth match, the 48kg quarter-finals, Zou Shiming played against Slovak boxer Rudel.

In this match, Zou Shiming continued to attack his opponent with his pirate boxing tactics.

Pirate boxing is a variant of guerrilla tactics, which belongs to the tactic of "defeating the strong with the weak".

It is mainly used to deal with "regular troops". The fighting style is relatively flexible. On the boxing ring, you retreat after hitting, change places after hitting a punch, avoid the enemy's edge, constantly consume the enemy's physical strength and patience, and finally find an opportunity to defeat the opponent.

This fighting style is more useful in amateur competitions, because amateur competitions only focus on victory, and don't care about the viewing effect.

It is not very useful in professional boxing matches.

On the one hand, professional competitions have 12 rounds, and fighting guerrillas for twelve consecutive rounds is also very physically demanding.

On the other hand, this evasive style of play is not very good for viewing, tickets for the match cannot be sold, and PPV revenue will not be too high.

In the 48kg quarter-finals, Zou Shiming defeated his opponent Rudel with a score of 26 to 19 and successfully advanced to the semi-finals.

After a short break at noon, Link returned to the arena in the afternoon to participate in the 69kg semi-finals.

There are four boxers left in the semi-finals, fighting two by two. Link drew the local Thai boxer Su Bok.

Su Bok is 28 years old, 180 cm tall, 182 cm wingspan, and weighs 68.3 kg. He was a Muay Thai boxer. At the age of 24, he won the 64kg championship in the All-Thailand Boxing Competition. He is known as the "toughest man in Thailand" and is well-known in the Muay Thai world.

During the game, there were many fans of Su Bok in the audience, shouting "Come on" in Thai.

Su Bok is also a part-time boxer, with a record of 10 wins and 3 losses in 13 amateur matches.

Link watched the opponent's quarter-finals. This person has good physical strength, good resistance to blows, fierce fighting style, and strong willpower.

But this person was originally a Muay Thai athlete. The fighting style of Muay Thai is very different from boxing. Muay Thai allows the use of double fists, double legs, double elbows, and double knees to attack the opponent, which is also called "eight-arm boxing".

Muay Thai athletes will strengthen the strength of their elbows and knees during training to maximize the killing of the enemy.

Boxing does not allow the use of double elbows and knees.

So the two sports have very different offensive methods, and the muscle groups used when exerting force are also very different.

This difference makes it easy for the opponent to make small moves during the game, because it is the opponent's home court, so it is not stopped by the referee.

In addition, Subak's fist power is not strong, and the foundation of combination punches is very poor. He also likes to dodge during the game, punching and running.

There are safe ways to deal with this kind of boxer, and there are also radical ways.

The safe tactic is to play steadily, defend strictly, wear down the opponent's strength bit by bit, and then look for opportunities to defeat the opponent.

This method is safe, but inefficient and seems to be rather slow.

If Link wants to make a name for himself through the World Championships, he must show more strength in the game and defeat his opponent cleanly.

After the game started, his opponent Subak took the initiative to attack him, punching his head with his fists, and punching with both fists alternately. When Link raised his hand to defend, he was hit by his opponent's elbow several times.

The referee did not say anything about this.

Link did not protest. After evading his opponent's attacks several times, he found the right opportunity to get close to his opponent and punched him in the abdomen.

Subak is indeed the toughest man in Thailand. Although he does not have many muscles, he is very strong, like a piece of iron.

Link's fist only made his opponent retreat half a step back, and did not let the opponent focus on defense to the chest and abdomen.

The opponent attacked with his backhand, Link dodged sideways, swung his fist at a faster speed, and hit the opponent's left rib again.

The powerful punch made the opponent groan, and his footsteps could not help but step back.

Link caught up with his opponent and punched him in the abdomen again. The opponent lowered his arms to block Link's fist. The first punch of the combination punch missed. Link followed up with a left hook from bottom to top, unexpectedly hitting the opponent's chin.

The opponent's mouth made a banging sound, and his head quickly tilted back, sweat was thrown out of his hair, and his feet quickly stepped back and hit the ropes.

Link strode forward and quickly approached his opponent. He punched alternately with both fists, hitting the opponent's arms, abdomen, chin, and front of the face hard. He punched more than ten times in three seconds. First, he broke down the opponent's defense. The last few punches landed firmly on the opponent's head.

One of the punches hit the bridge of the opponent's nose, causing bleeding from the opponent's nostrils.

The opponent held his head with his arms and squatted on the ground after being beaten.

"Stop!"

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

Link took a step back and shook off the blood and sweat that had splattered on his gloves.

"Link is so handsome."

"This is boxing, real boxing."

In the audience, Zou Shiming and several teammates on the boxing team shouted excitedly.

This is an amateur boxing match. Both parties wear sponge hoods. Under the double protection of the gloves and hoods, it is generally not easy to injure the opponent.

As for Link, he knocked someone unconscious in the last game, and gave his opponent a nosebleed in the first round of this game.

Too fierce.

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

"Old Zhao, you taught Link's playing style? I remember that you preferred the tactic of boiling frogs in warm water, wearing down your opponents little by little. Why has your style suddenly changed so much now?"

Coach Zhang Chuanliang asked.

"Uh, haha, I told Link before that you don't have to worry about tactics when playing a game. As long as you can win the game, you can use any tactics."

Coach Zhao Liwei laughed dryly.

In the ring, the coach asked Sue Burke if he wanted to continue the game.

Sue Burke said to continue.

The Thai audience in the audience also shouted cheers.

Link and his opponent haven't started fighting yet, and the first round of the game is over.

After a minute's rest, Link and his opponent stood on the ring again. The bridge of his opponent's nose had been treated and the blood was blocked. Except for some redness and swelling, the rest didn't look serious.

After the second round started, Link chose to continue attacking, but his opponent covered his face with both fists and kept dodging with very flexible movements.

It's a pity that no matter how nimbly he dodges, he is still not as nimble as Link's steps, nor as fast as Link's punches.

Link punched to force his opponent to the ropes. With the help of rope tactics, he hit up and down, down and up. He broke through Subok's defense with only eight punches, and hit his opponent's face and chin again with his fists.

Before he could continue his attack, coach Subok threw up the white towel and chose to admit defeat.

The game had just entered the second round, and Link had already shown his ability to crush Subok, so there was no point in continuing the fight.

Subok also chose to admit defeat after getting up.

Link defeated his opponent again and successfully advanced to the finals to compete for the gold medal with British boxer Martin Murray.

This is also the first time that a Chinese male boxer has reached the finals at the World Boxing Championships. In terms of women's boxing, Chinese female boxer Zhang Maomao won a women's 57KG championship at the 2001 World Championships.

After Link came off the field, he was congratulated again by the coaching staff and teammates. Someone from the boxing promotion company also came to say hello and was willing to increase the offer to sign him.

It's just that the highest offer from these people was only $200,000 in signing bonus, which didn't attract his interest at all.

——

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

asked Dmitry Salita, promoter of Arena Promotions, from the audience.

Promoter Sean Gibbons looked at Link in the crowd.

"Wait a minute! If Link was a smart man, he wouldn't just join a small company."

"Indeed, with his strength and image, joining a large promotion company, Pacquiao will be another Asian destroyer in the future."

Dmitry Salita said.

"He's probably better than Pacquiao."

Sean Gibbons said.

"Oh? Do you think he is better than Pacquiao?"

Dmitry Salita asked in surprise.

The Filipino star Pacquiao entered the professional boxing world in 1995. His current professional record is 40 fights, 2 losses and 1 draw. He is the current IBF-WBO bantamweight world champion and one of the most famous boxing stars in the current lightweight field.

"Yes, the strength, speed, and tactics he displayed in the boxing ring are also at the top level in professional boxing. Don't forget that he is only 18 years old and there is still huge room for improvement."

Sean Gibbons said.

"It's really great."

Salita looked at Link with more intense eyes. Before the finals started, he immediately called and reported to Barry Hearn, the boss of the Arena Promotion Company, saying that he saw a very good boxer at the World Championships. , very worthy of investment.

Barry Hearn said that he has the final say on contracts of less than $500,000 and believes in his vision.

After Salita made the call, he heard that his old friend Sean Gibbons was also on the phone to report to Top Promotions boss Bob Arum. He smiled casually and was not worried about competing with Top Promotions. In boxing promotion In terms of field, although Top Promotions is very strong, the competition room is not bad either.