The winner will become IBF strawweight titleholder Pedro Taduran’s mandatory challenger.

In an effort to earn that opportunity, Abne will attempt to use his boxing skills to work his way into the fight against the aggressive Zhu.

"Dianxing Zhu is very good, he has lost just once and has a very high knockout percentage," Abne (12-0-2, 4 KOs) told The Ring.

"I will play around during the start of the match and try land good combinations on him once I got him on the late rounds, I will follow our game plan set by our coaches."

Abne, who hails from Cebu, is happy to have home advantage over his Chinese foe and believes that will play an important part in what could be a long and taxing fight.

"It's very helpful to have the world title eliminator fight in Cebu," he said. "We can bring the fans and my family here to support and inspire me through the fight. Hopefully that will get me the win as well."

The 26-year-old Filipino, who is married with three children, is following in older brother April Jay’s footsteps.

He had over 100 amateur fights and has been training at ARQ Boxing since he has his second professional fight.

Abne has remained undefeated so far but has two technical draws on his record, including one last time out when he fought for a WBC regional title against Rento Miyazawa (TD 4) in Nagoya, Japan, on August 4.

While this fight represents a step up the class, the risk is worth the reward.

"One fight at a time, our target in the future is to get a shot at the world title," he said. "Whoever has the belt whether it's Taduran or [Ring, WBA and WBO titlist Oscar] Collazo. We will definitely look forward to the challenge. But for now, we focus on Dianxing Zhu."

Zhu (16-1, 14 KOs) turned professional in January 2019 and won his first five outings before losing to the much bigger Fangyong Zhang (UD 4) in August 2020.

The 29-year-old has rebounded strongly with 11 wins, 10 inside the distance, notably taking Shane Gentallan's unbeaten record (TKO 10) and stopping another Filipino, Marco John Rementizo (KO 3).