American heavyweight prospect Jared Anderson picked up a first career defeat when he was dominated and stopped by divisional bogeyman Martin Bakole. Now, his promoter has explained why he was not surprised when his man was halted.
Around 18 months ago, Jared Anderson was considered as the heavyweight division’s hottest prospect and was being touted by the masses as an almost guaranteed future world champion.
Although, unconvincing decision victories against Charles Martin and Ryad Merhy put an end to Anderson’s 100% knockout streak and saw him lose momentum ahead of his toughest test.
On the Crawford-Madrimov card in August, ‘The Real Big Baby’ met with Congolese-born Martin Bakole in a clash with where world title opportunities were up for grabs, but it was the away fighter who was able to upset the odds.
From the opening round onwards, it was man against boy and the relentless Bakole continuously marched forward unphased by what was coming back to drop the 24-year-old on three occasions before earning the fifth-round stoppage to cap-off an authoritative career-best display and send out a message to the rest of the division.
The MOST surprising thing about Bakole knocking out Anderson was that for MOST of the US boxing writers/commentator this was a big upset.
IT WASN'T. #CrawfordMadrimovpic.twitter.com/YfplM9saSD
— przemek garczarczyk (@garnekmedia) August 4, 2024
However, speaking with Big Fight Weekend, Anderson’s legendary promoter, Bob Arum, detailed that he and his team had nothing to do with the matchmaking for the contest and that they were actually ‘against that fight’.
“I want everybody to know that it wasn’t us. His Excellency Turki Alalshikh went right to the fighter and made this proposal for money that the fighter had never seen before and picked as his opponent, Bakole who is a tremendous puncher and Jared prepared to deal with a guy who couldn’t move very much but was a great puncher and he never fought a guy like that. So the fact he got taken apart and got knocked out was not surprising.”
“So don’t put it on my matchmakers. We were against that fight. Again, when they wave money at these kids, they insist on taking it. We could have gone to court to prevent it, but we don’t do those kind of things. We let the fight go ahead. We made our money from the fight but we let that fight go ahead and it was the stupidest fight Jared could have taken.”
Whilst Anderson will likely require a rebuild to find some confidence and form before stepping up in levels again, Martin Bakole is now well poised for a shot at heavyweight gold.
Bakole has been ordered to take on Agit Kabayel in an IBF final eliminator in the coming months and the victor is expected to challenge for Daniel Dubois’ world title in 2025.
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