UFC: Zhang Weili emerges from coronavirus quarantine looking to Valentina Shevchenko after hero’s welcome home
- Zhang unsure of when or where she will make return to the Octagon, but resumes full training in Tianjin and pays emotional tribute to China’s healthcare workers
- Strawweight champ targeting defences vs Rose Namajunas and Tatiana Suarez – and a tilt at flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko
The UFC’s world strawweight champion Zhang “Magnum” Weili has appeared out of quarantine for the first time, revealing how the attention she received from China’s seemingly tireless healthcare workers almost reduced her to tears.
“Everyone I came into I contact with was super kind, just like family members,” Zhang, who ended her isolation on Tuesday, told a conference call that included the Post. “When I got off the plane [in Tianjin], the staff kindly said, ‘Welcome home’, and they all wore clothes with the words ‘welcome home’ written on them. It was a scene that touched me and it even made me feel like crying.”
Zhang’s journey over the past three months has been monumental, beginning in early February with a truncated fight camp that was moved to Thailand and then Abu Dhabi, as Covid-19-enforced travel restrictions and worries over the spread of the virus forced her out of China.
After four weeks of travel and isolation, Zhang (21-1) arrived in Las Vegas and then stepped up to successfully defend her title against former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4) in a Hall of Fame-calibre bout on March 7. Zhang then had to wait six weeks in the US – as the coronavirus crisis continued to escalate – before getting the all-clear to return to China.
Zhang had remained in close contact with family and friends while also trying to remain focused on the first defence of a title she won in Shenzhen last August, a feat that made her the UFC’s first Chinese champion and a global star.