As far as celebrity group shots on the Great Wall, this sure beats Justin Bieber.

Manny Pacquiao is in China, of course, to fight Brandon Rios on Saturday, in Macau. Despite losing his previous two bouts, Pacquiao’s camp seems… confident:

“I know I predicted Manny would knock Rios out inside six rounds, but based on our last workout, I don’t see how Rios makes it past the fourth round,” said trainer Freddie Roach.

The Pacman’s a heavy favorite, but you never know with old boxers. One of these days, they’ll take a stunning blow to the chin, go down, and retirement’s upon them before fans have paid their proper respects.

I’m not telling you to watch Saturday’s fight. But if it’s on CCTV (the listing says there’s boxing on Sunday at 11 am, though it doesn’t specify who’s fighting), you might as well.

I call it the Weibo Rule (though in my head, Kripke from The Big Bang Theory is the narrator, and it’s the “Weibo Wule”). Take any China number widely quoted in Western media and divide by 10.

Forbes proved the rule recently, pushing the “Sina Weibo has more than 500 million users” line when, by Sina’s own admission, active users are under 50 million. Here’s Forbes again, this time on why 14-year-old Chinese golfer “Guam” (sic) Tianlang’s heroics at the Masters make him a golf ambassador to “billions.” (I’m not picking on Forbes, just the low-hanging fruit.)

And now here’s the New York Times, in an otherwise decent article, parroting the line that as many as 300 million TV viewers watched Chinese boxer Zou Shiming’s professional debut last month.

It’s one thing for the advertisers, the promoters and the spin men to push out some headline numbers (and then explain in the small print why those numbers might be misleading). That is, after all, their job – to hype up their chosen field and get the moneymen drooling. A quick Google search, for example, will show you all manner of media saying that Manchester United have 108 million fans in China, when of course they have nothing of the sort. But it certainly helped the club’s IPO go that much more smoothly.

Is China really still that unknown in the West that readers – or, more crucially, writers – just swallow these inflated numbers without questioning?

In Greg Bishop’s NYT piece, he paints a picture of the aging promoter Bob Arum, for whom China just happens to be the Next Big Thing in a lifetime of Next Big Things. China is not exactly an untapped market these days, but the numbers can be used to make a compelling picture. Quite where the organizers came up with a figure of 300 million TV viewers for the Zou Shiming fight is anyone’s guess (a guess is likely what it was). A more rational total – taking into account all the usual asterisks when dealing with opaque Chinese data – would be closer to 30 million.

Let’s not forget, though, that lost somewhere in the hyperbole about how the Chinese will soon dominate golf, tennis and the rest is a huge amount of potential, of which at least some will be realized. Sina Weibo might not have 500 million users, but 50 million still equates to an awful lot of page views, trumping all but a handful of sites worldwide. Back in the sports world, don’t expect the Chinese to ever become as dominant in tennis and golf as they are in table tennis and badminton, but we will undoubtedly see more athletes of the caliber of Li Na and Guan Tianlang.

HBO broadcaster Larry Merchant’s comments on boxing’s global expansion could just as easily be applied to China’s entire sports industry: “The number of zeros on the estimates are staggering, unprecedented and tantalizing to a promoter. Where it goes, nobody knows.”

Mark blogs at The Li-Ning Tower. Follow him on Twitter @DreyerChina

Two-time Olympic gold-medalist Zou Shiming triumphed in his professional debut on Saturday, which you surely already know, if you follow Chinese news. He won a four-round unanimous decision against Mexico’s Eleazar Valenzuela in Macau’s Cotai Arena at the Venetian, the result alternately described as “dominating” and “a formality.” Ring announcer Michael Buffer, before the bout even began, said 300 million people in China were watching, surely an exaggeration based on a TV exec’s wild hope. But everyone is pushing Zou, including the boxing establishment, and if this was pro wrestling, he’d be given a belt pronto and asked to carry the sport and his country, his country and sport.

The backlash was inevitable. The 31-year-old has been described as displaying a “total lack of ability,” and more than a few people have complained about his paycheck — that smooth 300 K, dollars — when older, arguably better boxers get a fraction of that while living on the undercard. “It’s equally hard to imagine Zou becoming a dominant force on the highest level, thus making it interesting to see just how quickly and aggressively he will be matched within his relatively short window in the next 12-18 months,” wrote ESPN boxing analyst Brian Campbell.

The Li-Ning Tower’s Mark Dreyer perhaps offers the most in-depth breakdown, writing in Global Times:

It’s not often that a four-round flyweight bout tops a strong boxing card, but that tells you everything about the marketing behind Zou. He entered the ring, as countless boxers before him have done, lapping up the applause and punching the air, but for Zou it was out of character. It was almost as if he thought that was what was expected of him, now that he’s a professional.

George Foreman, who knows a thing or two about translating Olympic success into a world title, wisely remarked that pro debuts and title fights make boxers do strange things, and Zou’s emotion carried over into his performance.

Zou’s frantic, windmilling style was, at times, reminiscent of a brawler with little training, not the disciplined fighter who won three World Amateur Championships.

According to all three judges, Zou won each of the four rounds for a unanimous points victory. He was clearly the better boxer on the night, but there were moments when it was hard to tell who was the favorite.

How long until Zou’s put into a situation when failure is possible? What then, both in terms of how he reacts and how fans perceive their great Chinese boxing hero?

Dreyer, writing in The Li-Ning Tower, also offered this observation about Zou’s post-fight translator, wife Ran Yingying:

Clearly it was calculated to play to a Chinese audience, since, as a former CCTV anchor, she is also a known face, but her performance was more cheerleader than translator, and the interview ended after just two questions when she appeared not to know what a knockout was…

Her choice also makes sense, given how much style she exudes. The challenge for Zou’s camp is now to provide substance.

Full fight here:

The haute urban fad that is White Collar Boxing spread to China earlier this year, culminating in bouts that doubled as a black-tie charity event (November 17 in Beijing, December 1 in Shanghai). The highlight video for the Beijing event, “Brawl on the Wall,” was just released to YouTube yesterday. More than 500 people reportedly attended to watch eight fights by amateur boxers who had spent the previous three months training. Proceeds (clarification, 3:05 pm: collected for charity; not all proceeds) went to Leo’s Foundation Beijing, supporting children born with respiratory failure. Youku video for those in China after the jump.

Here’s a full match for those who love boxing. Rupert “New Zealand Lightning” in red vs. Colin “Big Daddy” Dixon in blue, we’re told:

Xiong Chaozhong (his name is rendered as Xiong Chao Zhong in many media outlets) won his country its first pro boxing title on Saturday night when he beat Mexico’s Javier Martinez Resendez in a unanimous 12-round decision (119-110, 116-112, 116-114) to capture the vacant WBC minimumweight title (105 lbs/48 kg). A Yunnan native — ethnic Miao, to be precise — the 4-foot-10-and-a-half-inch (1.49-meter) Xiong was fighting on his home province in Kunming at the Kunming Municipal Gymnasium.

With his history-making win, Xiong improved his record to 20-4-1 with 11 knockouts. He had previously failed in his bid to become China’s first boxing champion when he lost to Japan’s Daisuke Naito for the WBC flyweight title in May 2009.

After his bout, he said he hopes to win more titles in the future. (Here’s a Fight News interview he did earlier this month.)

The entire 30-minute match is on Youku, embedded after the jump for those in China.

Full fight:

(H/T Go Kunming)

Today (by which I mean Friday) marks the official premiere of director Yung Chang’s documentary China Heavyweight in New York. Far be it from me to tell you New Yorkers how to spend your Friday evening, but this movie looks like it’s worth your time. (There are two more showings today at IFC Center, at 7:25 pm and 9:40 pm.) It’s by the same company that made Last Train Home (though not the same director), a film that I’ve seen no fewer than four times while writing a 40-page amanuensis (preview). Director Yung appears to have found the perfect tale: an underdog story set to the backdrop of sacrifice, hard work, hope, perseverance, etc. Those words may seem recycled and meaningless, but watch the preview. And here’s the synopsis from Sundance, where the film was shown, earlier this year:

In southwestern China, state athletic coaches scour the countryside to recruit poor, rural teenagers who demonstrate a natural ability to throw a good punch. Moved into boxing training centers, these boys and girls undergo a rigorous regimen that grooms them to be China’s next Olympic heroes but also prepares them for life outside the ring. As these young boxers develop, the allure of turning professional for personal gain and glory competes with the main philosophy behind their training—to represent their country.

With the endorsements this movie has already gotten, including from the eminent James Fallows, we can assume you’ll be hearing a lot more about it soon.

And now we wait… for it to arrive in China in the form of a bootleg DVD. No spoilers, please.

UPDATE, 11/28, 7:49 pm: The film won Best Documentary at the prestigious Golden Horse Film Festival.