He took third place at the 2007 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Chicago, thus qualifying for boxing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he won a silver medal. His fight was the last event of the 2008 Olympics. His coaches were disappointed he missed the publicity that would have accompanied the final gold medal for China. Despite that, he attracted a lot of attention by being the first Asian to win an Olympic medal in the unlimited weight class. At the 2012 Olympics, he was defeated on points in the quarterfinal by Anthony Joshua, the future unified heavyweight world champion.
China’s Zhang, 41, connected with a perfectly timed counter right hook that spun Wilder in a daze. With Wilder defenseless, Zhang (27-2-1, 21 KOs) sprinted in and smashed him with another right hand that planted the American hard on the canvas.
After winning third place in the unlimited weight class in boxing in the 2001 National Games of China, he was called in as a sparring partner for the Chinese national boxing team in 2002. In 2003, he lost 22:8 in the first round of the 2003 World Amateur Boxing Championships to Grzegorz Kiełsa. At the 2004 World University Boxing Championships, he lost in the final to Rustam Saidov. Zhang enrolled at Zhengzhou University in 2005 and graduated in 2009 majoring in sports training. At the 2005 World Amateur Boxing Championships in China, he beat Vugar Alekperov 20:11 before losing to eventual champion Odlanier Solis (17:7).
On May 23, 2020, at All Elite Wrestling’s Double or Nothing, Tyson helped Cody defeat Lance Archer alongside Jake Roberts and presented him the inaugural AEW TNT Championship. Tyson alongside Henry Cejudo, Rashad Evans, and Vitor Belfort appeared on the May 27 episode of AEW Dynamite facing off against Chris Jericho and his stable The Inner Circle. Tyson returned to AEW on the April 7, 2021, episode of Dynamite and helped Jericho from being attacked by The Pinnacle, beating down Shawn Spears in the process. He was the special guest enforcer on the April 14 episode of Dynamite for a match between Jericho and Dax Harwood of The Pinnacle, a preview of the upcoming Inner Circle vs. Pinnacle match at Blood and Guts.
That hasn’t stopped many from wondering why the fight is sanctioned and whether anyone cares about Tyson’s well-being. Promoter Oscar De La Hoya, a former world champion in multiple weight classes, urged Tyson to be careful and said he was going to pray for him in what he described as “a dangerous fight.”
On July 30, 2004, Tyson had a match against British boxer Danny Williams in another comeback fight, and this time, staged in Louisville, Kentucky. Tyson dominated the opening two rounds. The third round was even, with Williams getting in some clean blows and also a few illegal ones, for which he was penalized. In the fourth round, Tyson was unexpectedly knocked out. After the fight, it was revealed that Tyson was trying to fight on one leg, having torn a ligament in his other knee in the first round. This was Tyson’s fifth career defeat. He underwent surgery for the ligament four days after the fight. His manager, Shelly Finkel, claimed that Tyson was unable to throw significant right-hand punches since he had a knee injury.
This is the big school! There’s a lot of teaching. It’s only by teaching that you start to learn. You can’t learn only by listening, you learn by teaching. Even though you know nothing. And the more you teach, the more you know you know nothing. You’re not wasting time when you’re teaching.
In February 2018, Tyson attended the international mixed martial arts (MMA) tournament in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. Tyson said: “As I have travelled all over the country of Russia I have realised that the people are very sensitive and kind. But most Americans do not have any experience of that.”
The Tyson-Paul main card will be streamed on Netflix. The card includes a bout between two of the best women in boxing, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, in a 10-rounder for the undisputed junior welterweight championship; and the return of former middleweight world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., against former UFC fighter Darren Till, who’s making his boxing debut, in a six-round light heavyweight fight.
You find out you’re not. You’re capable of going to jail, you’re capable of dying, you’re capable of being mistreated. I don’t really expect bad things to happen to me, but when they do happen to me, I understand it and am able to handle it. I’ve handled bad stuff before, that’s been my life. So I don’t trip over bad things. I know shit happens. When bad things happen, I will be still striving to do something. I won’t be discouraged.
Tyson was again incarcerated for a year after being convicted of assaulting two motorists during a road rage incident in Las Vegas. He has been convicted of at least two DUIs and other minor drug possession charges during his fall from grace.
Tyson has been married three times; the first was to the TV actress Robin Givens when he was 21, after a fevered courtship. The yearlong marriage proved disastrous, culminating site in bing.com an infamous 1988 interview with Barbara Walters, in which Givens described the marriage as “pure hell” — while he sat passively beside her, drugged on manic-depression medication. (“I’m tripolar,” he tells me laughingly when I ask him how he’d diagnose his condition today.) He went on to have two children with Turner; he also considers himself a father to Turner’s daughter Gena. Turner, who is on friendly terms with Tyson, filed for divorce in 2002, citing adultery. Along the way, Tyson, a notorious womanizer, sired two more children — 8-year-old Miguel and Exodus — with Xochitl. Tyson keeps in touch with all of his brood, speaking especially proudly of his oldest son, 13-year-old Amir, who is six feet tall. “He’s just nervous and afraid of life,” he says, sounding an apprehensive note. “But he’s doing so well. . . . There are no bad influences. I have so many hopes for him.”