Domination in America, Starting from being a Boxing Champion-Chapter 455 - 377: End and Beginning_3

Link also sparked a 'Link fever' across Japan with his handsome looks, strong and sexy body, superb stage performance skills, and beautiful singing voice, winning the adoration and love of countless Japanese fans. He was also named 'Most Charming Man of the Year' by magazines such as "Women Themselves" and "Daily Sports".

——

By early October, the world tour's Asian leg had concluded.

The Asian tour lasted nearly three months, stopping in 37 cities for 48 concerts, and sold a total of 2.67 million tickets, making Link the Western artist with the highest ticket sales in Asia over the past decade, with the last one being MJ.

During this period, his three albums doubled their sales in the Asian market, with approximately 4.2 million copies sold, an impressive feat.

Conservatively estimated, Link's net income from this Asian tour was around 120 million US dollars, with revenue sources including ticket sales, appearance fees, album and single sales, concert video sales, endorsements, photobooks, etc.

Major media outlets such as the "New York Times," "The Washington Post," and "Los Angeles Times" lavished him with extravagant praise for his Asian journey.

They said he conquered the hearts of countless Asian fans with his beautiful songs, exquisite singing, strong stage presence, outstanding creative and learning abilities, and powerful personal charisma, adding that this marked the beginning of his rise to a global superstar.

Publications like "People Magazine," "Newsweek," "Vanity Fair," and "GQ" featured him on their covers, proclaiming that after weathering September's media storm, he had emerged anew and remained the most influential man in the international music scene, fashion, sports, popular culture, and the film industry for August and September.

Of course, some tabloids slyly called his Asian tour a 'flirtatious journey', linking him with Asian female singers he had collaborated with only once or met briefly.

They included members of Girls' Generation, Tara, Sun Yanzhi, Liang Jingsheng, Jolin Tsai, and Princess, among others, labeling them his rumored girlfriends, causing the number of women linked to him to surge from just over a dozen to dozens or even hundreds.

Link didn't pay much attention to these allegations.

Having been through the online backlash in early September, netizens seemed suddenly fed up and lost interest in his romantic rumors. They cared less about how many rumored girlfriends he had and more about when his next album would be released, his next boxing match, and his upcoming film.

Without the trouble of rumors, Link could focus on training at the gym, preparing for the year-end boxing match and devote more time and energy to preparing for his role in "Captain America".

"Link, this is your boxing match schedule for next year. Take a look, and if there's no issue, I'll discuss the specifics with Anna," his assistant Simon said, handing over a document.

"It's only October, and you're already arranging matches for next year," Link said as he took off his gloves in the boxing ring.

"Mainly because you're too busy," Simon shrugged and smiled, "Anna said you have a lot of work next year, almost no time to rest, so she wants us to get the boxing match schedule out early and arrange your calendar in advance to avoid conflicts."

"Every time I see you guys fill up my schedule so fully that I don't feel any anticipation for the next year's events," Link said as he flipped through the folder, noting there were five boxing matches for the next year, with the first two being Super Middleweight championship defenses.

To enhance the appeal of Super Middleweight matches, starting next year, the four major boxing organizations WBA-WBC-IBF-WBO will hold preliminary challenger title fights in advance, and the top two will earn a chance to challenge Link.

Originally, there was only one spot, but to give more people opportunities, it was changed to two matches.

There are tentatively three Light Heavyweight matches planned.

The first one is against WBA Light Heavyweight champion Belrut Shumenov.

Belrut is from Kazakhstan; he debuted in '07 with a current professional record of 10 fights, 9 wins, 1 loss, 6 by knockout. He also set the record for the least number of fights to become Light Heavyweight world champion, which is 9 fights, and is nicknamed the 'Dark Horse from Kazakhstan'.

He's pretty strong, with a fierce fighting style.

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After taking the WBA Light Heavyweight Golden Belt from the Spanish champion Campiro last year, he successfully defended his title once in March,

Trouble is, he's not very famous, even less so in the United States boxing scene compared to Mario.

He accepted the challenge hoping to defeat Link, the superstar, to gain higher popularity and appearance fees.

The plan for the second and third matches is undecided.

If he beats Belrut, the plan is to have him directly challenge the remaining champions of the three organizations: WBC champion Bernard Hopkins, IBF champion Chad Dawson, and WBO champion Nathan Cleverly.

If the three reigning champions still refuse to fight, he would obtain the challenger's qualification through the championship challenge matches. With the title of challenger, the champion of that organization would be left with only two choices: fight or automatically relinquish the Golden Belt.

These five matches are the plan for next year.

There are just some issues with the arrangements for the match venues.

Simon said that since his big breakout in the Asia region, businesses and travel companies from Huaxia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, and others, were all competing for the right to host his matches.

The starting bids are already over 20 million US Dollars, after taxes, per match.

Link thought for a moment and said that given the large population and market potential, Huaxia should be considered first.

Simon nodded and took note of it.

Link then asked about the Dynasty Sports Agency. In July, Dynasty's first round of financing was successful, increasing its valuation from 120 million US Dollars to 200 million US Dollars. It also established a new management team and changed the company name from Dynasty Promotions to Dynasty Sports.

Considering Link's contribution to the company, his shares remained unchanged at 30%, still making him the second largest shareholder after the financing.

The company currently has four professional boxers and six athletes in other sports, including badminton, tennis, and hockey among other niche sports.

While signing athletes, Link also thought about recommending a few boxers to the company.

However, the last boxer he recommended, Joe Smith, after joining a major event company, went through 12 professional matches, with 7 wins, 4 losses, and 1 draw, far from the champion Joe Smith that he remembered.

It was then that he realized, to become a champion, a boxer didn't just need to be signed and have matches arranged. They need to follow their original trajectory for growth.

In reality, for a boxer to become a champion, they need the support of coaches and sparring partners, the promotion by agents and management companies, and the boxer's own performance in the ring.

With different coaches, sparring partners, and agents, a former champion might just become a second-rate boxer.

After looking at Joe Smith's performance, he had no intention of continuing to recommend newcomers, so as not to inadvertently do more harm than good.

"Link, have you ever paid attention to the professional wrestling league? They want to invite you to be a guest presenter. You wouldn't have to compete, and the appearance fee is 3 million US Dollars."

Simon said, putting away his folder.

"WWE? If the invitation is for me to take part in a wrestling match, I'd be a little interested," Link said.

"That won't do. WWE matches are scripted, and without the proper training, it's easy to get hurt—and you have a movie to shoot soon," Simon advised.

Link nodded, accepting Simon's counsel.

He wasn't worried about getting injured; it was more that WWE events took a long time, and he simply didn't have the time for it right now. However, attending once as a guest presenter and earning some easy money seemed like a good idea.

After Simon left, he continued to train in the boxing ring.

Mario came by at one point, but just watched him train from a distance, no longer coming over to hassle him as he used to.

Since the media revealed his net worth of over a billion in September, everyone around him, including Mario, Dino, and Simon, had become more reserved in their interactions with him; the conversations weren't as casual as before, which he found quite boring.

Even though he was now a billionaire, his circle remained the same, without any upgrade.

If the people from his original circle stopped paying him attention, he'd indeed end up lonely.

He waved at Mario, calling him over for a bout. Mario hesitated but approached, donned his gloves, and stepped into the ring.

Compared to the first half of the year, Mario's big belly had deflated somewhat, but overall his weight didn't seem to have reduced much, nor had his strength improved. He was still only able to take one or two heavy strikes from him.

To help him regain confidence, Link pulled some punches and sparred with him for over an hour.

Bang! Thump thump thump!!