PATERSON, N.J. — It isn’t hard to tell that Zhilei Zhang has beaten this writer to the gym today. Several inches of snow fell in New Jersey earlier that morning, Feb. 13, pushing back the start of their training an hour, to 1 p.m. Approaching the warehouse where True Warriors Boxing Club is based, large footprints that obviously belong to a man well over 6-foot tall dotted the path towards the door, which leads to the second floor gym.

While this sort of flash snowstorm would encourage some to opt for an easier day on the treadmill, Zhang had no issues making the 20-minute drive from his home in Bloomfield to get in his work with head trainer Shaun George.

Even after two star-making stoppages of Joe Joyce last year, which earned him the WBO interim heavyweight title and the no. 3 heavyweight ranking with THE RING, George says Zhang (26-1-1, 21 knockouts) is still as hungry as he was when he first moved to New Jersey a decade ago from China to begin his professional career.

“He’s here every single day, he’s calling me up early in the morning to go running. He wants to work, he wants to win. That to this day is the same, there’s no change now that he has notoriety,” said George, a former light heavyweight contender turned upstart trainer.

With a matchup against Joseph Parker less than a month away, on March 8 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, there would be no missed days in camp. On this day, Zhang is joined by George and translator Kurt Li plus heavyweight boxer Joe Cusumano (22-4, 20 KOs), a Virginia-based boxer coming off a career-best win over Adam Kownacki last June. Cusumano is joined in camp by Norman Neely (14-1, 9 KOs), a local heavyweight whom Zhang often spars with, and Federico Pacheco Jr. (5-0, 4 KOs), a 20-year-old heavyweight prospect.

Today wasn’t a sparring day though, so George put on a pair of gloves himself and went through some situational drills in what was a modified version of punch mitts and technical sparring. Zhang shows patience, waiting for his cue to pull the trigger and fire short punches which he turns over to perfection. George, 43, does his best to move and catch the punches in the palm of his gloves like a punch mitts session but dangers are unavoidable; he once sustained a chipped tooth from a punch Zhang forgot to pull.

“Shaun has been telling me every day in training that I’m not only a big puncher. I’m a smart boxer and I have a high boxing IQ,” said Zhang, who hit the punching bag for 11 straight minutes before finishing up training on the speed bag.

Zhang, 40, remains a 2-1 betting favorite over Parker (34-3, 23 KOs), a New Zealander who held the WBO heavyweight title from 2016 until 2018, when he lost the belt in a unification fight with Anthony Joshua. The odds are perhaps skewed by the fact that Parker, 32, had been ground down in eleven rounds by Joyce in September of 2022, but Parker has won four straight since then, including a significant upset last December against former WBC heavyweight titleholder Deontay Wilder.

“My humble opinion is that it was due to the inactivity that Deontay Wilder was performing that way. He fought one round for almost two years which is very inactive and that led to his timing being off,” said Zhang, who is managed by Terry and Tom Lane, and promoted by Queensberry Promotions.

George says they aren’t sure which version of Parker will meet them in Riyadh, the aggressive one which walked Wilder down, or the passive one that tried to counter Joyce, so they are preparing for several eventualities. George did note that Parker’s trainer Andy Lee, a former WBO middleweight titleholder, is a southpaw like Zhang, meaning that Parker will get plenty of southpaw looks in training.

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Despite standing an imposing 6’6” and weighing over 280 pounds, respect didn’t come easily in the professionals for Zhang. After earning silver at the 2008 Olympics and dropping a decision to Joshua in the second round of the 2012 Olympics, Zhang was seen more as a foreign curiosity than a future threat once he turned pro. Skepticism grew after he faced Jerry Forrest in February of 2021 on the undercard of the Canelo Alvarez-Avni Yildirim fight in Florida. After dropping Forrest three times in the first three rounds, Zhang faded badly and was held to a draw.

What wasn’t as public was how Zhang had suffered from kidney failure, anemia and dehydration during the fight, and had to be hospitalized for three days after. Under those circumstances, George says he discovered how much heart Zhang has.

Parker was able to cement victory over Wilder by pushing his advantage in the late rounds, but George is confident that Zhang will be a threat until the final bell.

“Everybody can talk about his conditioning, say he can’t go into the later rounds, if this fight goes in the later rounds, they’re gonna be surprised. He’s doing swimming, he’s doing running, he’s doing strength and conditioning with [Dave ‘Scooter’ Honig]. He’s doing a lot of different things and he’s focused. It’s been a great training camp up to date,” said George, who notes that Zhang is an impressively fast swimmer.

(READ: Zhilei Zhang, ‘Giant man from China,’ wants heavyweight title shot)

The perception of Zhang changed overnight, in August of 2022, when he faced Filip Hrgovic in a heavyweight title eliminator. Many felt Zhang, with his short, powerful combinations that rocked the heavily favored Hrgovic, deserved the decision, but he ultimately lost  a close but unanimous verdict. There would be no need for judges in his next two fights, as he battered the previously unbeaten Joyce to a sixth round stoppage due to a closed right eye, followed by a third round knockout in the rematch last September.

“I was a big underdog going into the Joe Joyce fight. Everybody was talking about his 15-0 record, undefeated, Joe Joyce will destroy me in six rounds, that’s what everybody was saying. He’s the juggernaut, he’s unbreakable, but I went in there with a good preparation with my coach Shaun George and everybody can see the work,” said Zhang.

“September was the second time I proved that the first time was not a fluke. I always feel like people have a misunderstanding about me because they don’t get to see me. On March 8 I also have something new to show everybody. Every fight I’m bringing something new to the table.”

The interim belt which Zhang now possesses puts him in a pivotal position in a heavyweight division that is at the precipice of great change. THE RING champion Oleksandr Usyk, who also holds the WBO, IBF and WBA titles, will finally meet WBC titleholder Tyson Fury on May 18, and with so many mandatory challenges left to fulfill, there remains a good chance that the belts will immediately splinter after they are unified.

If the WBO belt is vacated, the interim titleholder would become the full WBO champion. If it isn’t, then Zhang could potentially make millions in a showdown against a heavyweight champion whose marketability will be at an all-time high.

“I’ll see what happens when the time comes if I should exercise my right but that’s something I never pay attention to in this camp. My whole focus is Joseph Parker, I know he’s a tough opponent, he’s my priority right now,” said Zhang, who will fly to Saudi Arabia on Feb. 27.

George figures that Fury is less likely to fight Zhang, noting that the British big man never makes mention of him, opting instead to discuss fights like a rematch with Francis Ngannou, or Anthony Joshua, both of whom will face one another in the main event on March 8.

“Usyk is a different type of breed, a different person when it comes to those things. Maybe Usyk will honor his obligation and fight,” said George.

“Skill-wise I can take both of them,” said Zhang. “Are they gonna take me? I think that’s the problem. I think they are going to approach me with caution because I represent very big risk here.”

Other heavyweights aren’t the only ones finally taking notice of Zhang. For the first time in his career, local officials have organized a delegation of hundreds of people to fly from China to Riyadh to support Zhang in person. As he walked into the gym, a wine distributor who operates on the compound gifted him two bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, a Bordeaux wine which often sells for hundreds of dollars per bottle.

The respect he’s earning is a by-product of his success in the ring.

“In 2008 I made the Olympics and I got the silver medal, that’s when people started to recognize that there’s a big Chinese heavyweight that can fight. But that was it. Then I turned pro and in ten years I feel like I settled down, I’m not clout chasing. The more I settle down I realize I have to work hard and get where I am right now. I believe in both west and east worlds, I’m being recognized a lot more than before,” said Zhang.

Should his winning streak continue, there will plenty more bottles for Zhang to uncork.

Ryan Songalia has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler and The Guardian, and is part of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism Class of 2020. He can be reached at [email protected].