Conquer America, Start with a Boxing Champion

After finishing his work here, Link returned to Kyoto on Christmas Eve.

After a period of promotion, the new album "The fighter" began to be released in China and overseas.

Because it is an English song, the domestic sales are average, with only 285,000 copies sold in the first week, of which 194,000 copies were sold from Hong Kong Island and Taiwan Island, and the sales in the mainland were less than 100,000.

The sales in Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and other places are good, with 420,000 copies sold in the first week, ranking third on the Japanese Oricon Weekly Chart and fifth on the Korean Album Sales Chart.

Eight songs including "Unstoppable", "Chasing the sun", "Fight Song" and "The fighter" were on the hot 20 of the English pop song chart in Asia.

The sales in Europe and the United States are neither good nor bad. The first week sales in the United States were 72,000 copies, ranking sixth on the Billboard Album Chart, the first week sales in the United Kingdom were 33,000 copies, ranking seventh on the Album Sales Chart, and the sales in Canada were 20,200 copies. The sales in other regions were all below 20,000.

The total sales in Europe and the United States in the first week were 278,000 copies.

This number was very bad for Link in the past. For a Chinese singer, the first week sales can be ranked in the top 10 of the US and UK album charts. This result is very good. No one has ever achieved it before.

Warner Records plans to let him hold autograph sessions in Europe and the United States and participate in TV programs to increase the exposure of the album.

Link did not object. He needed to make more money now. The more money he could make before 2008, the better. It didn't matter if he was busy at this time.

At the end of the year, Link traveled around Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong Island, Shanghai and other places, held autograph sessions and fan meetings to promote the new album.

In the first month of release, the new album sold 1.837 million copies in Asia and 826,000 copies in Europe and the United States. The results are not bad, much better than the first albums of European and American singers who debuted in the same period.

After spending the Spring Festival in his hometown, Link continued to hold autograph sessions, which were busy until the end of February.

After returning to Kyoto, Link continued to practice boxing in the training hall or train various track and field events in the track and field stadium to prepare for the 2008 Olympics.

While he was busy training, Zhang Zilin was also busy participating in the Miss World selection.

In order to help her get a good ranking, Link funded the establishment of Zhang Zilin's personal studio and hired world-class image designers, aesthetic consultants, fashion designers, etc. to improve her appearance and temperament.

In April, the WBC middleweight world champion challenger qualification competition was decided. Ugandan-American boxer Kasim Ouma defeated many opponents and got the qualification to challenge Link.

Kasim Ouma is also a well-known boxer. He was kidnapped by rebels at the age of five and then trained as a child soldier by the rebels and forced to take up arms to fight.

Later, because of his good talent in boxing, he was selected into the rebels' boxing team and began his amateur boxing career.

At the age of 22, while touring the United States with the Ugandan amateur boxing team, Kasim successfully fled, and then became an American citizen on the grounds of political asylum and became a professional boxer.

Currently, his professional record is 30 wins and 2 losses in 32 games. He is a boxer with good speed and strength, but his skills are average.

The WBC middleweight world boxing championship was held in the Reeves Stadium in San Francisco, USA. Link won the first round by knocking out his opponent with two consecutive heavy punches at 102 seconds.

He won a prize of 18.8 million US dollars in this game, which is more than the previous game. The main reason is that his new album has sold well in the United States.

"The Fighter" was released in the United States for five months and sold a total of 483,000 copies. Among them, "Unstoppable", "Fight Song" and "The Fighter" successively ranked in the top 20 of the Billboard Singles Chart, and the remaining 9 songs also briefly ranked in the top 100 of the Billboard Singles Chart.

Top promotion labeled him as a pop singer during the promotion, and he received support from many fans.

Before the boxing match started, he sat in front of a piano in a suit and played and sang "Fight Song" by himself, which also won the applause of the audience.

Only one month later, Link came to the United States again to participate in the IBF-WBO Boxing Championship.

The opponent in this match is the ‘next generation’ Corey Spinks. His father is former heavyweight champion Leonard Spinks, who defeated Muhammad Ali in 1978 and took the WBA-WBC heavyweight gold belts from Ali.

Spinks’ uncle is Michael Spinks, who once won the WBA-WBC-IBF world boxing championship belts. He was defeated by Tyson in 1988 and retired with a record of 32 fights and 1 loss.

Leonard Spinks and Michael Spinks are also the first brothers in Olympic history to win boxing gold medals in the same Olympic Games. They won two championships in different levels in the 1976 Montreal Olympic boxing competition.

Spinks also received great attention after entering the professional boxing world in 1997 because his father and uncle were world boxing champions. He successively became the welterweight champion of the three major organizations and the light middleweight WBA world boxing champion. His current professional record is 38 fights and 2 losses.

The match between Link and Spinks Jr. was held in Toronto, Canada. After a round of technical competition, Link won by KOing his opponent at 52 seconds in the second round.

Link won a prize of 15.2 million US dollars in this match, including 6 million appearance fees and PPV share, box office share, and peripheral share.

After the match, Link lived in the United States for a while.

In addition to training, the US dollars earned, including boxing match bonuses, record share income, and advertising endorsement income, totaling 52 million US dollars, will be invested in the US stock market through Beethoven Investment and Hong Kong Island Golden Shell Asset Management Company.

He successively received 0.58% of Amazon shares and 15% of Facebook original shares.

In the summer vacation in June, Link returned to China to attend the premiere ceremony of "Curse of the Golden Flower".

The film was completed at the end of last year. After four months of post-production, the film was selected as the opening film by the Cannes Film Festival in May and was shortlisted for the main competition unit. It finally won the Jury Chairman Award, which is second only to the Palme d'Or.

During the film screening, Link's performance unexpectedly won praise from many film critics.

In the French media, many comments said that Link's performance in the film was better than that of veteran actors Zhou Runfa and Gong Li. Some film critics also claimed that Link, Gong Li and Zhou Runfa's performance in the play raised the quality of the film to a very high level.

Link was nominated for Best Actor, but lost to the four male protagonists in the French film "Glorious Days" during the selection process.

"Curse of the Golden Flower" was released on Friday, June 9, and sold 143 million box office in China in the first week, creating the best box office performance of domestic films.

The film's reputation is also relatively good, better than Huayi's film "The Banquet" in May. The Douban website scored 8.2, 6144 people rated it, and more than 30 media such as "Southern Weekend" and "Kyoto Metropolis Daily" gave it more than three stars.

Among them, Link received the most praise. Many fans said that they were surprised to see Link's performance in the film. He, a new actor, was not inferior to Gong Li and Zhou Runfa, two movie emperors and actresses, and even surpassed them. This is very rare.

In addition, he showed a strong and tough figure in the bathing scene in the film, which also caused many audiences to be amazed when it was shown in the cinema.

Many fans called him a male god, the most manly man in the entertainment industry, and very suitable for filming ancient dramas. They hope that he will make more movies in the future.

In response to these comments, Link said in an interview with reporters that he was able to perform exceptionally under the guidance of Director Zhang and the influence of the two predecessors. In fact, his acting skills are very ordinary. As for whether to continue filming, it depends on the time arrangement and whether the movie role is suitable.

"The Golden Armor" was released in China for 23 days, and the cumulative box office reached 300 million yuan.

In addition, the film has been released in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea and other places since June, and finally received a box office of 64.26 million US dollars in overseas regions.

The global box office of this movie reached 750 million yuan, and the producer announced that it had recovered its investment and made a profit of about 100 million yuan.

When "The Curse of the Golden Flower" was released, Link's single "Chrysanthemum Terrace" also became popular in China.

Taking this opportunity, Song Ke and Zhang Yadong pulled Link to release his third Mandarin album, using "Chrysanthemum Terrace" as the selling point, plus several songs he had newly copied.

The third Mandarin album has sold more than 4 million copies in China, which is higher than Jay Chou's seventh music album "Still Fantasy".

In July, the movie "Crazy Stone" produced by Flower Fairy Film and Television was released in China. The production cost of the film was only 3.5 million yuan. It earned 16.4 million yuan in the first week of its release in the mainland and 32.2 million yuan in the first month of its release in the mainland, becoming the biggest dark horse in the domestic film market in 2006.

As the producer of the film, Flower Fairy Film and Television has also entered the field of vision of peers in the entertainment industry.

In addition to Crazy Stone, Huaxianzi Film and Television also invested in three movies this year: Left and Right by Wang Xiaoshuai, Crazy Racing by Ning Hao, and Good Man of Three Gorges by Jia Zhangke, all of which are low-cost movies with a budget of less than 10 million yuan.

Lin Ke also received several script invitations, including big productions such as The Warlords, Assembly, and Disciples. The crew of The Warlords offered 30 million yuan to invite him to play the role of Lao San in the film.

After considering it, Lin Ke declined the invitation from the film company. On the one hand, he did not like the character of Lao San and was not satisfied with the performance. On the other hand, he was not short of money or fame now, so there was no need to waste two or three months to make a movie.

In August, Lin Ke and the Chinese Track and Field Team came to Athens, Greece, to participate in the 10th World Cup Track and Field Competition held here.

After eight days of competition, he won 6 gold medals in shot put, javelin, 1500 meters, 3000 meters, 5000 meters, and 10,000 meters, and two bronze medals in 100 meters and 200 meters.

In September, after defeating De La Hoya in Macau, Link announced that he would give up the middleweight championship belts of the four major organizations and announced that he would challenge WBC super middleweight champion Marcus Bayer.

Marcus Bayer is a German boxer with a current record of 34 fights, 2 losses and 1 draw. He is a boxer with good strength.

Under the operation of Bob Arum, Link did not need to participate in the championship gold belt competition and directly competed with Marcus Bayer.

This match lasted three rounds. In the first round, Link made 132 shots and knocked down his opponent twice. In the second round, Marcus Bayer defended with all his strength and did not fight him head-on.

Link continued to use superb skills and combination punches to destroy his opponent's defense and knocked down his opponent again in the second round.

In the third round, the opponent fell to the ground continuously and his strength was greatly reduced. At 46 seconds in the third round, Link hit the opponent's forehead with a straight punch, causing the opponent to fall to the ground and unable to get up for 10 seconds.

Link also successfully won the WBC super middleweight gold belt.

Link's income from this game was 18.5 million US dollars, slightly more than the previous game, and his opponent also won 8 million US dollars in bonuses through this game.

After Link won the WBC super middleweight gold belt, Top Promotions represented Link to declare war on the other two super middleweight champions, including WBA champion Mikkel Kessler, WBO-IBF super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe, and super middleweight boxing superstar Roy Jones Jr.

After the declaration of war, Bob Arum began to contact the brokerage companies of the three champions to prepare for a round-robin battle.

In October, the world's largest search engine company Google announced the acquisition of YouTube for US$1.68 billion.

Golden Shell Investment, which owns 18% of YouTube shares, voted in favor of the acquisition and subsequently received 1.26% of Google shares, worth about $302.4 million.

Golden Shell Asset Management Company invested $21 million in YouTube last year and this year for YouTube software development.

In less than a year, this investment has increased more than tenfold to more than 300 million yuan, and has also brought Hong Kong Island Golden Shell Asset Management Company into the public eye.

At present, the assets owned by Hong Kong Island Asset Management Company include 4.92% of Tencent shares, 30% of JD shares, 0.88% of Amazon shares, 15% of Facebook, and 1.26% of Google shares, with a market value of about $800 million.

According to Hong Kong Island Finance Magazine, the major shareholder of this investment company is a foreign investment company called "Beethoven", which holds 72.8% of the company's shares.

The second largest shareholder of the company is the world-renowned athlete Link, who holds 26.6% of the company's shares, worth about $210 million, or about RMB 1.4 billion.

The news was subsequently reported by domestic media, claiming that Link's net worth reached 1.4 billion yuan. According to the China Rich List published by Forbes at the beginning of the year, Link's assets were equivalent to those of Hu Chengzhong's family, which ranked 196th.

And he was only 21 years old.

"Southern Weekend" analyzed in detail the source of Link's assets in the latest issue of the financial edition.

The main part came from the prize money of the competition. In the past two years, Link participated in 18 professional boxing matches and earned nearly 100 million US dollars after tax.

The second part of the assets came from music. Since 2003, he has released three Mandarin albums and one English album. The sales of the four albums were good and he earned 200 to 300 million yuan.

The third part is film remuneration, advertising endorsement income and stock market investment, which is about 500 million yuan.

He also earned these assets at this age with his fists and talent.

After these news were reported, many domestic boxers were inspired by him and began to practice boxing desperately. According to statistics from domestic boxing magazines, the number of domestic amateur boxers and registered professional boxers has been increasing since 2005.

There are currently 1,156 professional boxers in China, while two years ago, the number was only 243.

The China Sports Daily believes that the explosive growth of boxing in China in the past two years is largely due to the influence of Link.

The newspaper also believes that this influence is long-term. As long as Link continues to win in the boxing arena and continues to create good results, the influence of boxing in China will become greater and greater.

And Link's title of "China's No. 1 Boxer" is well-deserved.

After Link's worth was exposed by the media, it also brought him some troubles. After seeing the report, acquaintances called him one after another, calling him the God of Wealth and the big boss, and jokingly asked him to treat them to dinner.

But when he really treated them, these guys would be very restrained when they saw him, and even became cautious in speaking. Link knew that there was a sad thick barrier between him and everyone.

As for women, Zhou Xun and Gao Yuanyuan, who had not dated for several months, often called him to meet up.

Lin Zhilin, who used to date once a month on average, now comes to Kyoto to live for a long time every few days. Every time they meet, she will take the initiative to change into various beautiful clothes, and she is more gentle when exercising.

The princess also has less temper when dating. She used to care about the poses, but now she will reluctantly agree.

Zhang Zilin began to worry about gains and losses, worried that men would become bad when they have money. After Lin Ke comforted her many times, she slowly put her mind at ease.

And Feifei and Tang Yan are even more fascinated by him. Basically, they are the type that can't be shaken off even if they want to.

Although this change is very good, it also makes him a little helpless. No matter how handsome, excellent, powerful, and strong a man is, he can't compare to the numbers on the account, whether in the past life or this life. (End of this chapter)