Queen of the Middle Kingdom: How Vincent Soberano built the striking superiority of UFC champion Zhang Weili
This lovely article was submitted by Karl R. De Mesa (@karlrdemesa)
There were many emotions running through Vincent Soberano at UFC Fight Night 157 last August when his long-time student, Zhang “Magnum” Weili, defeated the reigning champion, Brazil’s Jessica Andrade, within just 42 seconds.
Soberano, the owner and head coach at Black Tiger Muay Thai Fight Club in Beijing’s Shunyi District, felt that familiar rush of triumph, ecstasy, and validation. But most of all, he felt relief.
“Weili’s victory for me was a relief,” Soberano said, speaking from his house in Manila, the Philippines.
“Victories should have many feelings but this one was special. It’s the pinnacle,” he added. “It’s not only because my student won a UFC title but because she’s also the first Asian to win one. Not just Chinese or female. Out of so many Asians in the UFC who’ve tried, nobody else but her came close.”
It’s certainly been a long road for the Filipino, a veteran striking trainer and eight-time Muay Thai champion. Soberano came to Beijing in 2004, relocating from San Diego, California after leaving his family’s hometown in Bacolod, the Philippines. He worked as an IT engineer before his passion for martial arts took over and he decided to, in his words, “burn all my ships, like Cortez did” and set up Black Tiger Fight Club, effectively severing his ties from the software corporate world.
Black Tiger was one of the first legit Muay Thai gyms in China back then, built on the strength and reputation of Soberano’s 80-plus pro fight experience since 1978, his training in America with the likes of Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, and at Kaewsamrit Gym in Bangkok where he earned his studs under Wanmario, Saeksan Janjira, Den Muangsurin, and Coban "The Cruncher" Lookmaesaethong.
One of Soberano’s first students was Chinese MMA pioneer Tiequan “The Wolf” Zhang, who eventually formed his own stable China Top Team, collaborating with Soberano’s Black Tiger and putting him in charge of all the pros’ striking training.
Soberano has since brought up many Chinese MMA pros under his tutelage, including Yao Honggang, Yao Zhikui, “The Leech” Li Jingliang, and of course Zhang Weili. This culminated in a stint as the striking coach of the Sky Dragons Team on The Ultimate Fighter: China in 2013.
It was also around this time in 2013 that “Magnum” came to Black Tiger and CTT, earning her journeyman studs in Kunlun Fight and Chinese Kung-Fu Championships before making her debut in the UFC in 2016 against Danielle Taylor.
With 10 KO/TKOs out of the 17 stoppages of her career, it’s fair to say that it’s Weili’s mix of outstanding work in the clinch and her blitzes in the pocket spelled the difference. It was this similarly solid striking foundation that got her the belt against the juggernaut that was Andrade—who had slammed the former champ Rose Namajunas into unconsciousness, Quinton Rampage-style.
While Soberano has since retired from coaching, preferring to focus on his movie directing career (check out The Trigonal: Fight for Justice, where Li Jinliang makes an appearance) and only coming out to help polish his long-time students during fight camp like Li and Zhang, he took some time to share his insights on how he crafted the striking superiority of the new strawweight queen for that near perfect win at UFC Shenzhen.
Interview with Vince Soberano
Has Zhang Weili’s victory sunk in at all yet?
“Up to now I still feel like pinching myself. Is this a dream? It still seems like it was yesterday that I watched this girl come into the gym and get beat up by the guys. She even refused to spar with the girls.”
Does it feel like a validation, since you’ve been in Beijing since the early 2000s as one of the few legit Muay Thai trainers in the country?
“It was quite amazing. It’s been a long road. Especially for me, since I started training the Chinese fighters back in 2005. Zhang Weili is actually one of our later generation fighters but she was very promising from the beginning. A lot of people told us we’ll never make it.
They cited many reasons: like Asians are smaller, our bones are smaller, we don’t have the money, we don’t have the conditioning that the North Americans and the Brazilians have, wrestling isn’t intrinsic to Chinese martial arts. It’s just a lot of different excuses and criticisms.
We persevered though and I believed that I could bring the Chinese fighters to a world class UFC level. I didn’t know how long it was going to take but there was a lot of potential. But when Weili won the long road that we had became justified.”
How did you transform Weili from a Xanda fighter to a Muay Thai fighter with a knee and elbow game?
“The problem with her was she wasn’t built like the other Chinese fighters like Yan Xiaonan, who’s built more like a fighter with long legs and wide shoulders. Weili is shorter and stocky, she’s strong but her legs are short. She’s really fierce though. And relentless. And fast. Her biggest asset when I met her was that she had so much speed. When she came to us she’d already done some Xanda.”
Yeah, she came up through the Chinese sports program, right?
“She went to sports university and she majored in Wushu Xanda. She got a lot of ring time there. By the time she went to China Top Team she’d already been selected since we were really looking for female fighters to bring up. She was one of our first female fighters in China Top Team.
Ever since I started teaching her she became converted to Muay Thai. She had to adjust but she still does throw some of those Xanda spinning kicks. But back then most of her instincts were geared to that mind set, but overtime since she was constantly sparring with our fighters she would always get beaten up so she was pretty much forced to adapt. Over the years her striking system has become Muay Thai.”
Were you surprised that Jessica Andrade just went for that straight beeline blitz or were you expecting her to be cautious for the first few minutes?
“That’s what Andrade does, she never changes for anyone. She just does what she does because until she met Weili she was the strongest fighter in that division. What happened isn’t so much the speed difference but the strength, she underestimated the power of Weili. When I work with my students I look at their weaknesses and not just their strengths.”
There’s footage of Weili training her S&C all over social media, but from the outcome, it doesn’t look like Andrade took “Magnum” seriously in that regard.
“See, the videos of Weili training are all over the internet so anyone can see that she’s been working on her strength and conditioning and her hitting the pads really, really fast.
So we actually thought that Andrade would adjust, like “well I saw her and Weili is pretty strong so I’ll maybe take my time and let her make a mistake.” What we were expecting was for Andrade to not rush in like she usually does in the first round and to test Weili and find a way to take her down to the ground. But we also were aware that if Andrade didn’t change her style we’d be strong enough to stay in the pocket and strike with her.”
Talk us through the preparation it takes to make your fighter able to stand toe-to-toe in that pocket?
“So we already knew that Weili is fast and accurate but at the time she didn’t have the same strength as Andrade, but our strategy was to stand in the pocket. We’d fight her there and overpower her.
How? We needed to build new strength for Weili. So we worked with her strength and conditioning coach Ruben Payan, who’s the best in China and probably the best I’ve seen anywhere in Asia. Ruben spent a lot of time with Weili to bring out her strength in a short period of time. If it wasn’t for her S&C she would never have been able to stand up to Andrade. Never mind toe-to-toe. That was a very determining factor in our strategy.
You don’t stand in the pocket unless you’re confident you can match the strength. It’s a different ball game. We weren’t surprised at all that Andrade kept on coming. We knew we were going to win, we just didn’t know we were going to win that quickly.”
What’s your philosophy or secret when you train elite fighters?
“Dealing with top level fighters you can’t use a template. You need to know their skills and tendencies intimately, you even need to know how they think. The difference between Tiequan Zhang and Li “The Leech” Jinliang is huge. Tiequan is a fighter but he’s not an athlete. Jinliang is an athlete. In MMA it’s not the fighters who excel but the athletes.
Fighters are tough and they like to scrap but after five minutes they’re usually on a decline because they brawled too much. But athletes, whew, they can go on forever since they’re machines.
Li Jinliang is a machine! His conditioning is superb. Jinliang is fighting at welterweight and most of his opponents are bigger and more muscular than him. Compared to others he’s thin but you can’t knock him out, he also hits so hard even with his scrawny arms. It’s all technique.”
The story of how you came to Beijing and became a pioneer in Chinese MMA is an interesting one, to say the least.
“I retired professionally from fighting in 1997, since 1978. In 2005 I went to Beijing because of my work as a systems engineer for a software company. So I wanted a place to train and went to all these so-called Muay Thai gyms in Beijing. But they really weren’t, they were all fake and YouTube stuff. Not legit at all and I was definitely not happy with what I was getting.
Add to that it came to a point that I was so in love with martial arts and so out of love with my job that I realized I was just doing it for the money and the money was not making me any happier. Something had to give. So I came to a decision and I said I’ll do what Cortez did: I’ll burn all my ships so that there’s no turning back.”
You severed your ties so you couldn’t back out. But, what then?
“What am I going to do? I’m going back to pursue my passion for filmmaking in China and I’m also going to start teaching Muay Thai and martial arts. They said “Wow you’re going to teach martial arts in the land of martial arts? You need a psychologist.” And you don’t know Chinese either, they laughed.
But when the UFC absorbed the WEC they got one of my first fighters, Tiequan Zhang, along with it. So he was the first Chinese fighter to fight in the lower weight classes of the UFC. Eventually he formed China Top Team so he could have sparring partners.”
But you’re pretty much retired now from Black Tiger Fight Club and focused on your movie directing and producing career?
“After Weili won I said to myself: I’m pretty much done. See, the current crop of Chinese UFC fighters are all from my time, so there’s a gap between generations. Also since I haven’t coached any of the new ones. Nowadays I go back and forth between Taipei and Manila, since my martial arts company is in Taiwan but my film production company is in the Philippines.
I think the new blood of Chinese MMA has a long ways to go. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to guide them since I’ve retired from coaching. I barely coach now and not even on a regular basis since I’m so picky with who I teach. If someone like Li Jinliang has a fight and he has an 8-week camp that’s the only time I go in. Otherwise, I’m not there to coach.”
Any fights of interest for Weili’s first title defense?
“Tatiana Suarez would be a pretty good fight against Weili, but I think I’d love to see her fight against Rose Namajunas or Joanna Jedrzejczyk first before getting a crack at the champ. Either of those would be a fun, technical fight.
And Rose, hey just because she got slammed on her head and knocked out by Jessica, doesn’t mean she’s a bad fighter. She just wasn’t prepared for that. When Rose comes back, as long as her head is on tight, she’ll come back as a force. But definitely we won’t fight Valentina. Not yet, but maybe soon.”