King Of Sports - 211 Next Stop

There was no stopping Tang Yan now. He forgot the crowd and drove Lomachenko to the ropes, rocked him and doubled him up, punching him off balance.

Toe to toe in the ring, neither asking for quarter nor giving it, Tang Yan and Lomachenko struck at each other, sobberd by the pain of their own blows, primitive, as they sought to overcome one another.

The crowd was roaring, but Tang Yan couldn’t hear a word. He could only see the face of Lomachenko, sick with pain, eyes glassy, but lips set in a snarl. Tang Yan drew back for a finisher.

But he was caught blindsided by a blow from Lomachenko, it felt like he had been struck by a house. He was down, his head weaving from side to side. The referee was counting and Qin Hailong grabbed the towel again.

Members of the crowd leapt up, shrieking, thinking it was the final blow.

Pandemonium was about to break out but at this moment, an unexpected scene suddenly occurred in the ring.

The referee’s hand had started down on the fatal count, when Tang Yan, so swiftly that eyes could scarcely follow his movement, charged Lomachenko, almost from a prone position. He drove Lomachenko against the ropes again and one-two’d him, with fury.

He drove at the man’s heart with everything he had and Lomachenko went through the ropes. He went through as if hurled from a catapult. He was horizontal as he passed through, straight into the laps of his team.

Tang Yan was forced back by the referee and he staggered to a neutral corner.

The referee rushed to the ropes and looked down.

Based on the rules, Lomachenko had till the count of 20 to get into the ring and rejoin the fight.

But there was little to no need to count. Lomachenko was gone!

Completely dazed and out of it, he was sprawled out on the gymnasium floor, his team laid him down and backed away. They couldn’t help him at all or it would be grounds for disqualification.

And with that the referee came over and started the final count.

When the referee’s count hit zero, the whole boxing gym went into chaos.

As the crowd went haywire, screaming and chanting, the referee crept into the ring and lifted the right hand of Tang Yan.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your winner…..by KO!”

“The new 60kg World Boxing Champion!”

“Tannng Yaaaan!”

The audience at this jumped up and drowned Tang Yan with cheers and applause.

“Boxing killer! Boxing killer!”

“Tang Yan’s once again created history for China!” Yang Jian CCTV’s main commentator said choked.

Tang Yan gasped, enjoying the cheers of the audience.

“Tang Yan!”

“Tang Yan!”

“Tang Yan!”

Waiting for his breath to calm down, he walked over and pulled up Lomachenko.

The Ukrainian looked miserable at this time. After trading so many punches with Tang Yan, he wasn’t exactly looking pretty but then again neither was Tang Yan, who’s cuts had opened up again.

Lomachenko had bruises and a swollen nose and several small cuts across his face similar to Tang Yan.

Being lifted up by Tang Yan, the defending champion said grimacing: “I won’t lose next time. We’ll meet again in London.”

“I look forward to it.” Tang Yan said with a smile. Sealing the agreement.

“The Boxing Killer shines again in Baku City, cutting down the defending champion and winning the 60kg event at the World Boxing Championships!

“Archery champion, swimming champion, boxing champion, what’s Tang Yan’s next stop?”

“Hahaha there’s no sport he can’t take on! They can put up whoever they want but we’ll send up Tang Yan!”

…..

After Tang Yan won gold, reports about him were overwhelming.

And just after Tang Yan won the championship, his Weibo also exploded again.

Zhuang Jiajie capitalized on this and updated Tang Yan’s bio as the 60kg World Boxing Champion.

Looking at Tang Yan’s Weibo following that had soared to more than 3 million followers, he was feeling somewhat smug.

In fact, Weibo was like this. If you wanted to get long-term attention, naturally you needed to bring in constant news. Tang Yan finished the swimming world championships and immediately went to the boxing world championships, keeping his momentum going.

Of course, Tang Yan, who was far away in Baku, didn’t pay attention to this. After he finished the fight, he had to attend the award ceremony.

During the flag-raising ceremony, because most of the crowd were Azerbaijani, not many people on the scene could sing the national anthem, but Tang Yan was more excited than when he was in Shanghai.

After finishing the World Championships in Baku, Tang Yan didn’t return to China with his team. He stayed for two more days and after Zhuang Jiajie flew to Baku, the two boarded a plane to the UK together.

They were off to film the advertisement they owed Snickers.

Sitting on the plane and looking at the endless sky outside the window, Tang Yan wasn’t very excited in his heart.

He wasn’t really a child of eighteen, nearly nineteen years. Filming and starring in an advert sounded cool and artistic, but he knew it was bound to be another tiring endeavour.

He was curious as to why the advertising company chose the UK as the filming location this time though.

The flight from Baku to London wasn’t too bad, only 5 hours or so.

So after a quick snooze, Tang Yan woke up in British airspace and after flying about for another 30 minutes, they landed at London – Heathrow Airport to actually be greeted by the Vice President of Snickers UK.

With that it was clear that Snickers placed quite a bit of importance onto the ad campaign, which was to be expected after all they were relying on it’s effectiveness to gain a footing and expand into the Chinese market.

They held a quick meeting to discuss the schedule for tomorrow, then Tang Yan and Zhuang Jiajie headed to the hotel to rest.

The time difference between the UK and Azerbaijan was only 3 hours, but Tang Yan still had to somewhat adapt.

Chilling at the hotel Zhuang Jiajie held up his tablet and ran through the advert one final time.

The ad was actually quite simple, it followed the same format as the Snickers ads from Tang Yan’s previous life.

The ad would start with him participating in an archery competition but he would be tanking, shooting 2’s and 4’s. He would be acting sluggish and disappointed when his teammate next to him would tap him on the shoulder and hand him a Snickers, saying “Have a Snickers”. He would ask why and then his teammate would say the tagline: “Because you’re not you when you’re hungry”.

After that there would be a cutscene of him taking a bite of the Snickers bar and then going on to score a bunch of bullseye’s, winning the competition.

In Zhuang Jiajie’s opinion, the advert sounded very creative and full of continuity.

However, Tang Yan had already seen this type of advertisement a million times in his previous life so it wasn’t all that interesting or ‘innovative’ to him. So he turned his eyes to the windows, and the streets of London.

London, was where the 2012 Olympics would be held and would be the first Olympics he would participate in since his rebirth.

So since he was here ahead of time he might as well enjoy and adapt to the atmosphere in advance.