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Pavel Toropov

Xu Can is no stranger to pressure – the Chinese boxer has been living with expectations of greatness his entire life.
Ever since his father, Xu Xiaolong, decided that Xu Can was destined to be a fighter, he has been living with those demands on his shoulders.
That might explain why the loss of his WBA featherweight world title to Leigh Wood last year sent the 28-year-old into a deep depression that took months to recover from.
Next month, Xu makes his comeback against Brandon Benitez in Tampa Bay, Florida, which will hopefully put him on the road to reclaiming his crown, which he won in 2019 via his unanimous decision win over Puerto Rico’s Jesus Rojas.

The journey back to the ring on October 7 did not begin when he was knocked out by Wood, nor in the months that followed. For Xu Can, his journey started in Fuzhou, a city in the northeastern part of Jiangxi province, about the same time Hong Kong was being handed back to China in 1997.
Xu Can would not have become a boxer it had not been for his father, whose unshakeable belief in his son’s talent had existed almost from the moment the younger Xu was born in 1994.
And yet Xu Xiaolong had no fighting experience to speak of. Born in Zixi county in Jiangsu, he learned the local trade of making Western-style bread and pastries. An adventurer at heart, he then wandered the length and breadth of China, moving his bakery from one city to another.
“Xiaolong” was not his real name, either. Meaning “Little Dragon”, it is Bruce Lee’s Chinese name, and the baker, who was fixated on martial arts, adopted it.
He started preparing his son to become a fighter when Xu Can was just a toddler – making him run, skip, do push-ups and climb trees.
In 2008, Xu Xiaolong learned that Liu Gang, the country’s first professional boxer, had opened China’s first pro boxing gym, in Kunming. He immediately took the 15-year-old Xu Can out of school and the family relocated to the capital of Yunnan province so he could train full-time.
“He did not have even a single bit of boxing technique, but I had blind confidence in him,” Xu Xiaolong said. “I told him one thing – all it will take for you to be world champion is hard work.”
That confidence was based on little more than the fact his son had been “athletic since childhood”.
“No matter what he was taught, he learned very fast,” Xu Xiaolong said. “There was a rope skipping competition with 2,000 yuan (US$250) in prize money to the winner. After only a month of training, he won. He was talented academically, too, always top three in his class.”
Xu Xiaolong claims he knew his young son was “champion material” because he was “especially good at chi ku” – being able to deal with hardship.

In Kunming, Xu Xiaolong dedicated all his efforts to looking after his son and had no time to run a bakery. The family made ends meet by doing odd jobs – Xu Xiaolong drove a motorcycle taxi – but it meant money was always tight.
Xu Can remembers the feelings of frustration and the pressure to help the family, and the only way to do so was in the ring.
Liu said the raw novice won him over with a ferocious work ethic and an excellent ring brain. The lanky teenager was made into a pressure fighter who used his superb fitness to throw more than 100 punches per round.
This aggressiveness earned him his moniker “Monster”.
While Xu Xiaolong’s faith in his son was not misplaced, it did require patience. Xu Can turned professional in 2013, and all of his first 14 fights were decided by decision. He won 12.
A stoppage victory over WBA super bantamweight champion Nehomar Cermeño in 2017 earned him the right to face Rojas, and 10 years after first setting foot in the gym, Xu became a world champion.
He bought a flat in Kunming for his parents with the money he won.
Two successful and spectacular defences, against Shun Kobo and Manny Robbles III, followed. Then Xu was brought back down to earth with a bump, or more accurately a technical knockout by Wood, in a fight Xu had been expected to win.
Xu compared the depression that followed to being lost in a “dark forest full of wild beasts that come to attack you”. It took months, and the unconditional support of his family, for him to find his way out of that forest.
Against Wood, Xu was lacklustre and sluggish, not the usual all-guns-blazing aggressor. Liu, who is now his manager, blamed the defeat on erratic preparation – because of the coronavirus pandemic, the fight was moved at the last minute from the United States to Britain, and Xu was forced to prepare alone in a foreign country.
The fighter did not accept that as an excuse, and said the responsibility for defeat lay squarely on his own shoulders.
“I did not make my own hopes reality,” Xu said. “I had worked very hard, but my performance in the fight was not good.”
To prepare for the bout against Benitez, a Mexican fighter with an 18-2 record, Xu returned from Beijing to the familiar surrounds of Kunming.
“In Kunming, Xu has not only his parents’ care but also his boxing brothers,” Liu said.

One of those “brothers” is the former WBC world youth and Asia champion Yang Xingxin.
“I did a few rounds with him, and I can tell he is in really good shape,” Yang said. “Every day, he trained, then went home to rest, then repeated it. Of all the times I have seen his preparation, this one has been especially good.”
A pressure fighter known for turning his bouts into slugfests, Xu said he had been working on becoming a better boxer.
“We have been working on strategy and on technique – moving and dodging more, bringing the opponent in and then countering,” he said. “Now I fight smarter, control the rhythm of the fight, rather than just taking and enduring my opponent’s blows.”
There is plenty riding on the outcome of the fight, not least of which is the chance to challenge for a world title once more.
Regaining his crown would make Xu the only Chinese boxer to hold a world title, and his country’s first two-time boxing world champion.
No pressure there, then.


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Xu Can speaks at April’s announcement of the Benitez bout, which takes place in October. Photo: Handout

The 15-year-old Xu Can moved to train in Kunming. Photo: Liu Gang

Xu Can during training in Miami. Photo: Max Power Promotions

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Sport

Chinese boxer sank into deep depression after he lost his world title last year
Now he has another shot at glory and a chance to make history


Chinese boxer sank into deep depression after he lost his world title last year, but now he has another shot at glory and a chance to make history.


Puerto Rico

China’s ‘Monster’ Xu Can aims to roar back against Brandon Benitez and begin journey back to WBA featherweight belt

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Chinese boxer sank into deep depression after he lost his world title last year Now he has another shot at glory and a chance to make history

Chinese boxer sank into deep depression after he lost his world title last year

Now he has another shot at glory and a chance to make history