Tanaka Kosei (L) of Japan and Wulan Tuolehazi of China pose in the pre-match press conference, Tokyo, Japan, December 25, 2019. /Courtesy of Team M23
"When a rival like that invites you to fight, nobody could resist it."
One of Wulan Tuolehazi's team staff told CGTN that is the reason why he would like to accept the challenge from Japan's most talented boxing champion Tanaka Kosei, even though the latter is two years younger than Wulan and has already dominated three divisions.
This time, the belt that Tanaka Kosei bets on used to belong to another Chinese, the two-time Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming, who "surprisingly" lost it to Japan's deliveryman boxer Kimura Sho on July 28, 2018, in Shanghai.
Kimura subsequently lost to Tanaka Kosei on September 24, 2018, in a contest recognized as the "Fight of the Year" by the WBO.
The fight on the last day of 2019 in Tokyo will be Tanaka Kosei's third defense, but it is Wulan's first chance at a world championship. And this flyweight fight is predicted to be the "hardest" match in Chinese boxing history by local sports media.
Wulan Tuolehazi (Red) of China punches Ardin Diale of the Philippines, in Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province, China, May 26, 2019. /Courtesy of Team M23
At the international level, maybe a lot of boxing fans started to be interested in China's Xu Can (18W-2L, 3KOs), who grabbed the WBA World Featherweight title on January 26, 2019 and successfully defended it twice in the same year.
However, not many of them know about Xu's teammate Wulan (13W-3L-1D, 6KOs), who has an eight-game winning streak since April 2018 and is currently the WBA International Flyweight Champion.
But that doesn't mean the young man, who is not very proficient in Mandarin, cannot become a household name in China.
Wulan Tuolehazi's interview with CGTN
Because he lives in a Kazakh community in Emin County, Tacheng Prefecture of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the "reserved" man cannot speak Mandarin fluently.
But he's a quite self-aware person as he told CGTN that he already knows 300 English words, and one day if he reaches 3,000, he would do an interview in English.
He knows where he wants to go.
Wulan Tuolehazi parades his WBA International Flyweight Champion belt. /Courtesy of Team M23
Born in a herdsman family, Wulan started to learn freestyle wrestling in the sixth grade of primary school.
When entering junior high school phase, he was selected to Urumqi Sports School due to his physical skills and switched to boxing.
There, Wulan also learned martial arts and even won a provincial Greco-Roman wrestling champion in 2010.
He followed the Xinjiang system boxing team since the age of 17, but when he graduated from the sports school, he dropped boxing temporarily and went to university in the capital Urumqi.
Wulan Tuolehazi of China poses before the bout against Ardin Diale of the Philippines, Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province, China, May 26, 2019. /Courtesy of Team M23
At university, Wulan even ran a boxing club with a friend and trained others, and if he continued like that, he probably would have gone back home and been a physical education teacher, which was his dream as a child.
An offer of a professional boxing match came in his third year of university and since then, he has thought of the sport as a career.
In his first five matches, he lost three times, but that's mainly the result of fighting in a heavier division, as in order to have the opportunity to fight, Wulan used to put weight plates in his pants to pass the weigh-in.
With the accumulated experience, Wulan saw the value of a good promoter and good team. Then he joined Team M23 in May 2017.
Wulan Tuolehazi of China and Team M23 staff in action during his fight against Tanaka Satoshi of Japan at Yangze River Delta Roadshow Center, Shanghai, October 17, 2019. /Courtesy of Team M23
When asked about the most memorable moment in his professional boxing career, Wulan said it was being knocked to the canvas by Yamauchi Ryota in Shanghai on March 30, 2019.
In fact, Wulan also knocked down Yamauchi once in the match but scored a unanimous points win. That moment stimulated the Kazakh to find more challenges to prove himself.
For the match against Tanaka Kosei, Wulan prepared in the Philippines with his old rival Ardin Diale accompanying him in training and Xu Can's coach Pedro Diaz also came to Beijing to give him tactical advice.
Facing Japanese media and Tanaka, who claimed that he would knock out Wulan, the Chinese boxer with nearly 50% KO rate said, "I like to fight with stronger people. I think I can beat him."
Now, both of them are in Tokyo to make their final preparations, and the live match will broadcast on China Central Television's Sports Channel CCTV-5.
(Cinematographer & Video Editor: Wu Chutian)