Inside Zhang Weili’s preparations ahead of UFC 268

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s a Saturday morning in October and Zhang Weili is in MMA gloves and her workout gear, walking to the mat at Fight Ready MMA & Fitness.

A YouTube video with the sound of fans loudly booing at a sporting event is being broadcast over the gym’s speakers. Coaches and training partners gather around and join in with the jeers, plus chants of “USA!” Henry Cejudo, the former UFC double champion and now one of Zhang’s coaches, yells for her to “go back to China!”

Zhang steps onto the mat, rolls her eyes at Cejudo and laughs. The sparring simulation — complete with a referee and a faux USADA official pantomiming a drug-test sample collection — is all part of her completely rehauled fight preparation.

On Saturday, Zhang will attempt to regain the UFC strawweight title from Rose Namajunas in the co-main event of UFC 268 in New York (ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET). Ahead of this fight, Zhang has changed just about every aspect of her training camp — the physical, the mental and even the geographical.

Zhang left her native China in early September to do her first training camp in the United States at Fight Ready. She has added wrestling to her game under the tutelage of Cejudo, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist. Eric Albarracin, Cejudo’s longtime coach, now refers to Zhang as “The Great Sprawl of China.” Perhaps most importantly,…