PADDY Barnes is hoping to entice Olympic Games nemesis Zou Shiming into a fight in Belfast this summer.
Barnes tangled with China’s Shiming three times at amateur level and The Irish News understands that negotiations are underway for the pair to face-off on the undercard of Carl Frampton’s Windsor Park show on August 18.
They first traded leather at the 2007 World Amateur Championships in Chicago. Shiming won 22-8 on the scorecards and went on to win the gold medal (one of three, plus a silver) before they met again in the Beijing Olympics light-flyweight semi-finals.
Home favourite Shiming was flattered by the 15-0 result, but the format had changed to three, three-minute rounds (as opposed to four twos) by the time they met again at the London Games in 2012.
Barnes was three points behind going into the final round but he drew Shiming into a furious tear-up and looked to have done enough to take the win and progress to the final. However, Shiming edged it on countback after the judges scored it 15-15.
Now 37, Shiming was the WBO flyweight champion before he lost the belt to Japanese Sho Kimura in July last year. Meanwhile, Barnes has raced to 5-0, winning WBO European and Inter-Continental titles, since his professional debut in November 2017.
