“How did I meet Buddy McGirt?” Ziyad ‘Zizo’ Almaayouf speaks or asks eloquently. “I spent months just studying his shot. Before I knew he was a coach. Then I opened Instagram and I said I got to know him, I tagged him in my story two years ago when he became my coach. Isn’t that crazy? I feel like the start is just aligned. We sometimes look back at our Instagram and laugh.”
Just weeks before his (final) professional boxing debut, the young Saudi boxer is in Liverpool for the first time, spending his time in the company of the Smith City brothers and his coach, the aforementioned International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee and former two-division world champion, Buddy McGirt. The pair were thrown together by chance, perhaps by fate, and if given the chance, Almayouuf will now make her first appearance amid the ropes back to her father’s hometown on under the super heavyweight fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.
“I was born in New York but then I moved to Egypt because I lived there with my mother. My father is Saudi and my mother is Egyptian; I was born in America and moved there [to Egypt], so I don’t really remember any of my days in New York. I started everything in Egypt: boxing, the school where I graduated. In the whole Arab world, we do not have independent boxing gyms. We don’t really have stand-alone gyms; what we have is a big sports center, shaped like a country club. It’s like a big center that has every sport: tennis, football, basketball, boxing, everything”.
“When you practice one sport, you will always see other sports around you. Because boxing isn’t really a thing in the Arab world – the boxing team doesn’t really have a place to train. So, where will they go? Runway – where we were. We would sprint and flex our legs before training, and we always see the boxing team training with their coach, loud, high-pitched voices. Everything that grabs your attention is being done in boxing. I could see the coach holding these gloves, screaming and shouting, punching the gloves hard; From there, I decided that this is what I wanted to do.”
That was 10 years ago. Now, Almaayouf is back in the United States, living in California, trying to imitate the man he heard and saw a lot in his early days: Manny Pacquiao. He said that what Pacquiao has been for the Filipino people, “Zizo can be for the Arab world.” Without confirming whether it was limited to sports, Almayouuf continued, discussing the cultural difficulties facing moving from Egypt to the US on her own.
“I would be lying if I told you it wasn’t hard, if I told you it’s not so emotional and lonely sometimes,” the 22-year-old confessed. “People can say, ‘Now we have phones and FaceTime.’ But you are forgetting about timezone. By the time I had a really bad day in my life – which a lot of times in the early days, when I wanted to talk to someone, when I needed someone at home, they were asleep. And when they woke up, I was asleep. At first, it was really uncomfortable physically, but also mentally. It was difficult without my family there. But I had to adapt; I have to feel comfortable not being in uncomfortable situations. It has become lonely – it remains so to this day. You just need to know what to do when you get those feelings and remember why you did it. You’re doing it for the people you miss; you are doing it for the country you want. All of that keeps it alive. “
Almaayouf has partnered with Rachel Charles, known for her leading work in supporting the warriors with their media and PR reps, and he is growing his profile in the face of those What is certain is back to Saudi Arabia. He didn’t look like a man or a warrior who lacked direction; He is calm, caring and understands the intricacies of the sport of boxing. However, that is not always enough. And speaking to McGirt privately, the motivational coach insisted that his new charge was just the beginning of a long, arduous road to the top.
Almaayouf knows how lucky she is to be cornered by one of the best: “When you hear Buddy McGirt in the corner, wow. That sounds like music to the ears of boxing fans. He knows the ins and outs of the game; he knows how to make you feel like you have everything under control – even when you don’t. That’s what a boxer needs. I wanted a trainer who was a boxer and who accomplished everything I wanted. No matter what situation I would be placed in on my journey, he got it done. I just sit back and listen. I need to keep an eye on Coach Buddy at all times. “
First stop: King Abdullah Sports City Gymnasium, Jeddah, Aug. 20. Undefeated, unified Ukrainian heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk will attempt to repeat his great performance. beat England’s Anthony Joshua for the second time in a row after their first match in September 2021. Almaayouf knew he was just a small piece of the event’s grandeur and he expected intend to shoot every second, bottled to gain experience. He will be there to share a coach with a former world champion in Callum Smith and share the bill with two Olympic gold medalists battling for heavyweight supremacy, at his father’s hometown. Will it become bigger and more meaningful than that?
“This is a huge event. Saudis are working to have those big events because they love boxing there. They are eager to introduce this sport to everyone. It opens up opportunities for a lot of local fighters and it gives people hope. For my family and friends, I have people from all over the world coming to Saudi Arabia right now, it’s crazy to see that people are getting ready to go to Saudi Arabia for a sporting event. sports. It’s beautiful, so everyone deserves to see it, and now, we’re opening our doors to the world.”
