Towering less than an inch short of seven feet, Taishan Dong is the great heavyweight hope of Chinese boxing.
Taishan Dong, left, with strawweight champion Xiong Zhao Zhong.
China has only one world professional boxing champion _ WBC strawweight title-holder Xiong Zhao Zhong, who is scheduled to have his first title defence against top-ranked Filipino Denver Cuello next month.
While Xiong is a superstar in the world's most populous nation, China is waiting for a physically big fighting hero to stand tall on the world stage.
As his name suggests, Dong hails from the Taishan mountains in southern China. He's a pedigree athlete _ a university wrestling champion and a kickboxing and kung fu superstar who's known across China as "the man with the knockout punch".
Dong wants to win three major combat titles over the next 12 months.
He has set his sights on winning the world title at the upcoming MMA World Series in Yangon, Myanmar, in August when he takes on the 'Pakistan Assassin' Norsherwan Khanzada for the world heavyweight championship sanctioned by the MMA World League.
If he succeeds in taking the MMA prize he intends to challenge for the WBC super-heavyweight title and then, if all goes well, fight for the WBC Asia super-heavyweight green belt and attain his third combat championship.
Dong earlier this year visited Thailand to learn Muay Thai and get a better understanding of the Thai fighting skills _ and conditioning techniques _ which he will use in his first MMA championship quest.
"I am confident with MMA as I'm a champion wrestler and know how to take down any opponent, as is essential for MMA. But stand-up grappling the Thai way will take more time to learn but is important as Muay Thai is the toughest discipline in stand-up combat," he said.
Dong is from a new generation of professional fighters in China who enjoy all martial arts as well as traditional boxing.
"In China we have thousands of years of kung fu history. We do our martial arts for purity of form, cultural entertainment and combat sport," he explained.
"In Thailand Muay Thai is cut down to what's best for winning _ full rules for standing-up fighting, and the Thai technique is based on punch, kick, knee and grapple.
"The Thai fight strikes have been tested over a long time and are very effective."
Over the past decades, the Chinese have introduced to the world their ring sport known as Xanda, which is kickboxing and throw-downs without ground skills.
"Xanda is the sport that bridges kung fu to MMA and Muay Thai. It's a Chinese indigenous ring sport and the Chinese fighters have to expand out from Xanda if they are be the superstars of MMA, Muay Thai and traditional boxing that are the three combat sports known around the world," Dong said.
Many see Dong as a combat giant who is headed for the same fame as Yao Ming, the former professional basketball star who played for the Houston Rockets.
While China has embraced the triumph of Xiong, known as "the little Mike Tyson", Chinese culture likes their combat sports heroes to be big in size _ and that's why there's already a lot of interest and expectation that Dong will to be "the next big one".
But Dong isn't getting carried away with his giant size and knows he's got a long path to win his goal of three major championships.
"I have a focus on MMA and have been given the chance of winning a world title and show the world that I can reach the Chinese people's expectations. I have spent my whole life preparing for the honour of becoming a champion fighter," he said.
Dong plans to be standing beside his pint-sized "brother" Xiong when he defends his world title for the first time.
He says Xiong will be under enormous pressure to retain his world title, as there will be billions of Chinese watching him fight.