Pacquiao vs. Algieri Undercard: Preview, Prediction Shiming vs. OnesongchaiGym
Chinese national hero Zou Shiming returns to action in Macau this Saturday night on the undercard for the Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri pay-per-view. The two-time Olympic gold medalist will look to extend his perfect record to 6-0 against Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym of Thailand.
Top Rank has been pushing hard to develop Shiming into the Yao Ming of boxing. The flyweight's local drawing ability has been enough to turn Macau into a destination site for major boxing cards.
But he's still far from developing into a headliner. Saturday night should give him the chance to take one step closer to that status.
Tale of the Tape
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| Per Boxrec | Zou Shiming | Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym |
| Record: | 5-0, 1 KO | 27-0-2, 12 KOs |
| Height: | 5'4.5" | 5'2" |
| Reach: | Unlisted | Unlisted |
| Weight: | 112 lbs | 112 lbs |
| Age: | 33 | 33 |
| Stance: | Orthodox | Orthodox |
| Hometown: | Zunyi, China | Buriram, Thailand |
| Rounds | 33 | 165 |
Boxrec has the reach unlisted for both of these fighters, but I believe Shiming enjoys at least a slight advantage here. He has very good length for a flyweight fighter, and OnesongchaiGym is compact.
Both fighters are 33, but Shiming has spent most of the past two decades fighting as an amateur. While building his professional record, OnesongchaiGym has faced extremely low-level opposition, for the most part.
Main Storylines
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China does not have a deep or rich tradition when it comes to professional boxing. The No. 2 all-time Chinese fighter on Boxrec is Harry Soo Quong Bill, who fought out of Chicago from 1924 to 1936, accumulating a record of 17-27-8.
Zou Shiming has been tapped as the figure to bring Chinese professional boxing into the modern age. He was a great international amateur, winning Olympic gold twice. In 2013 he turned professional.
The biggest boxing names in the world have been involved in advancing his career. He's been promoted by Top Rank and trained by Freddie Roach.
Shiming's career has coincided with the Chinese resort city of Macau making a push to become a kind of Asian Las Vegas. It has some of the most opulent casinos in the world and has now hosted major pay-per-view cards with one of the world's biggest boxing stars, Manny Pacquiao.
But if Shiming can rise to world-title status, he will provide a domestic superstar at the top of the card.
First, he will need to get by Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym of Thailand this weekend. OnesongchaiGym also fights under the alias of Kwanpichit 13 Rien Express, so that might be the name he is introduced under.
OnesongchaiGym has an impressive-looking record of 27-0-2, but 13 of the 29 fighters he has faced made their professional debut against him. The other 16 have an average record of roughly 8-4.
I've never seen a fighter who has faced that many debuting opponents. Maybe that's why his alias includes "13."
Shiming has to be one of the most thoughtfully handled fighters on the planet. He's the fighter a lot of rich men are banking on to open up a market of more than one billion people.
Therefore, I doubt somebody like OnesongchaiGym would have been selected if he was remotely considered a threat.
Strengths
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Zou Shiming is a very skilled technical boxer. He has quick hands and throws fluid combinations. He has excellent movement and works efficiently from behind his jab. He makes it very hard for an opponent to get into position to hit him.
Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym is an aggressive, determined pressure fighter. He commits to a body attack and keeps at it.
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Weaknesses
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Zou Shiming has just one knockout in his first five fights. It's a real question for me whether or not he's going to have the punching power to compete at the next level as a professional.
He still fights largely like an amateur. He needs to work on sitting down on his punches and making them punishing blows, not just scoring shots.
Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym is a rough, plodding fighter. Even against 4-5 Cheroenchai Sithsaithong, he had trouble cutting off the ring for the first couple of rounds. I expect him to spend a lot of time chasing Shiming.
Zou Shiming Will Win If...
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This should be a relatively easy fight for Zou Shiming to win. If he uses the same jab, defensive movement and quick, combination punching he's shown in his first five professional fights, he will outscore the less talented Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym round after round and cruise to a unanimous-decision victory.
He should not have much trouble keeping OnesongchaiGym on the outside of his punches, then circling around him and forcing him to reset awkwardly again and again. Shiming should be able to force OnesongGym into a badly overmatched game of chase.
I am hoping to see Shiming sit down more on his punches and get more power behind them. If he can't score more heavily, he's not going to beat the top fighters at flyweight. A skilled technical fighter with power like Roman Gonzalez will simply walk through him and cut off the ring.
Against Gonzalez, I wouldn't like Shiming to last five rounds at this point. But he should have little trouble with OnesongchaiGym if he boxes a clean, focused fight.
Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym Will Win If...
6 of 7Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym has no chance at all in this fight if he can't cut off the ring on Zou Shiming and limit the Olympic star's ability to dictate the fight from the outside range.
That means OnesongchaiGym is going to have to keep Shiming in front of him. He'll need to move side to side. If he just moves forward, Shiming will have an easy time slipping by him or circling farther away.
OnesongchaiGym also needs to be very disciplined about keeping his hands at home when he's not in range to actually land. Shiming is very good at avoiding punches with his movement. OnesongchaiGym needs to make that harder for him by showing smart judgment with his punch selection.
When he is truly in range, OnesongchaiGym needs to target Shiming's body. OnesongchaiGym should focus almost exclusively on Shiming's torso in the early rounds in order to slow him down.
Prediction
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If there was a serious chance Zou Shiming could lose this fight, I doubt it would have been made. He should easily outbox Kwanpichit OnesongchaiGym.
But Shiming won't be able to stop OnesongchaiGym, and his obvious lack of stopping power is going to limit the ability to market him at all to North America. U.S. fans rarely pay attention to flyweights as it is. When they do take notice, it's because the fighter is a wrecking ball, like Roman Gonzalez.
But Shiming's continued success should keep his popularity growing in his native country, which is the important thing here. If he can become anything like a contender, he'll be a source of national pride in China.
This fight is a WBO eliminator, so that means a win should bring Shiming one step closer to facing the champion, Juan Francisco Estrada. However, he's nowhere near ready for that fight. I'm not convinced that he ever will be.
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