B/R Exclusive: Former UFC Champion Zhang Weili on Carrying The Hopes of a Continent

Zhang Weili will be carrying the hopes of an entire continent when she steps into the Octagon with Carla Esparza in the co-main event of UFC 281 this Saturday in New York City.

It's a scenario the 33-year-old Chinese fighter knows well.

In 2019, she made history as the first Asian-born fighter to win a UFC title, with a 42-second stoppage of strawweight champion Jessica Andrade. That stunning victory, which went down in front of a raucous crowd in the Chinese port city of Shenzhen, not only gave MMA a huge popularity boost in China, but across all of Asia. It inspired young fighters all over the continent to set their sights on the sport's biggest stages.

Zhang lost the title to Rose Namajunas one year later, but she will look to reclaim it when she takes on Esparza in New York City. If she's successful, she will once again invigorate fans and fighters all across Asia.

"Before I got the belt, we all thought of UFC as too far away from us," Zhang told B/R on Tuesday. "It wasn’t our sport. We didn’t believe Asian people could win UFC championships. But since I got the belt, people see this is our sport. We can be champions. We can be at the top of the sport. Having an Asian UFC champion built our confidence in the sport."

Zhang's influence on the Asian MMA scene can't be understated. She has millions of followers on her various social media channels—the bulk of them on the Chinese platform Weibo—and has inked endorsement deals with corporate giants like Pepsi and Audi. In terms of mainstream appeal, she is easily the biggest MMA star to emerge from Asia to date.

Yet the former champion rejected the opportunity to boast about her massive influence on the Asian MMA scene, conceding only that she helped change the way people view the sport across the continent.

"I think through me, the fans know more about MMA and know more about the warrior spirit of this sport," she said.

"Before, their understand of this sport was very shallow—it was just pure violence—but because of me and other athletes in the Octagon, they see the warrior spirit, the martial artist’s spirit."

The MMA industry in Asia has grown in tandem with Zhang—not just in terms of the sport's popularity, but infrastructure. The continent is home to a number of important MMA promotions such as ONE Championship and Rizin Fighting Federation, along with an increasing number of high-level training facilities, from the UFC's new Performance Institute in Shanghai, China, to Bali MMA in Indonesia, to Bangtao Muay Thai and MMA in the combat sports hotbed of Phuket, Thailand.

Bangtao just opened its doors in April, but it has already established itself as a state-of-the-art training destination, having received a visit—and some high praise–from UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.

It has also been one of Zhang's main training homes since it opened, first for her stunning June knockout victory over Joanna Jędrzejczyk in Singapore, and also for her imminent fight with Esparza.

"I started training in Bangtao in April of this year, for the Joanna fight," she said. "Right after that I came back to Phuket from Singapore and kept training there with the coaches at Bangtao. Then I came to Vegas in September.

"The environment, the atmosphere of training at Bangtao is excellent because the gym is in a quiet very place and everything I did in everyday life—training, living in my apartment, physiotherapy—are on the same street. It’s very convenient. Everything is very convenient there, which allows me to focus on training. That’s why I chose Bangtao."

MMA gyms are not a new feature in Thailand. The country has long been home to highly regarded facilities like Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket and Fairtex Training Center in Pattaya. But Bangtao's quick rise to prominence is evidence of MMA's increasing popularity in Asia. There are more and more gyms opening all across the continent, which means there are not only more fighters emerging from the region, but better ones.

The UFC has looked to capitalize on this trend with its Road to UFC series, which kicked off in June and has seen fighters in the flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight divisions vying for contracts with the promotion, with countries like China, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines represented.

The program will funnel some exciting new Asian talent into the UFC—and Zhang suspects that will only be the beginning.

"UFC launched Road to UFC this year," she said. "We can see the sport developing rapidly in Asia. The quality is getting better and better."

"MMA as a sport is getting bigger and bigger in Asia," she added. "You can see more and more fighters from Asia signed by the UFC."

While the MMA industry in Asia is healthier than it's ever been, Zhang reclaiming the strawweight title would almost certainly take the sport to new heights on the continent.

Oddsmakers believe she'll pull it off—DraftKings lists her as a -330 favorite—and Zhang understands their confidence.

"I think it’s because of my performance in the Joanna fight," she said. "I showed I can do everything in the Octagon. I’m more well-rounded than Carla. I think that’s why I’m the big favourite in this matchup."

Esparza, who won the title with a controversial split-decision defeat of Rose Namajunas in May, is a two-time champion. She was the division's first titleholder.

Zhang respects her opponent and everything she has accomplished in the Octagon, even if she finds her game a bit predictable.

"She is the inaugural champion of my division, and after eight years, she won the belt again," she said. "I think her story is very motivating to everybody. I respect her as a fighter and I love her story."

"Everybody knows she’s a wrestler. Everybody knows what she’s going to do in the Octagon: wrestle and take you down."

Still, the Chinese star expects to finish the champion in New York City—much to the elation of the countless fans and fighters all over Asia watching her fights over breakfast and coffee on Sunday morning.

"I don’t think this fight goes five rounds," she said.