By Dan Ambrose: Jared Anderson will be returning to the ring next month in late August on ESPN after his harder-than-expected 10 round unanimous decision win over Charles Martin on July 1st.
It’s a bold move on Jared’s part to makee such a quick turnaround of one month, but it could be that his disappointment in his performance against the 37-year-old Martin had motivated him to get back in the ring to show the boxing world that he’s not the flawed hype job that many people saw against the aged ex-IBF heavyweight champion.
The southpaw Martin hurt the Top Rank-promoted Jared Anderson several times in the contest and had him out on his feet in the waning seconds of the 10th.
Anderson won the fight by a 10 round unanimous decision by the scores 99-90, 99-91, and 99-90. However, with Anderson getting hurt so often by the faded Martin, the fight showed that he’s not the fighter that he and his promoters at Top Rank believe him to be.
Unless Jared shows major improvements in his games, he’s not destined to be a world champion and clearly not the best heavyweight in the U.S.
The opponent for the unbeaten heavyweight contender Anderson (15-0, 14 KOs) is expected to be the unbeaten Zhan Kossobutskiy (19-0, 18 KOs). He was originally supposed to fight the 23-year-old Anderson on the July 1st card, but visa issues prevented it from taking place.
Kossobutskiy, 34, is a big puncher, and he’ll be looking to take advantage of Anderson’s habit of pulling straight back when attacked.
“He couldn’t keep his hands up, and every time that left hand came, he went to lean off, and he was still getting caught them,” said Shawn Porter on his Youtube channel about Jared Anderson’s fight against Charles Martin.
“You got to start slipping & sliding,” said Porter about Jared needing to stop pulling straight back. “This was a hell of a performance [from Anderson] because, other than two moments, he did everything virtually right.”
Porter is putting a positive spin on Jared’ss performance against Martin rather than telling it like it is. He struggled against a fighter that was blown out in two rounds by Anthony Joshua and lost to Adam Kownacki.
The immediate question is, can Jared Anderson makee improvements in his game in just one month in time for his fight against Zhan in August? That’s not much time for Jareed to fix his leaky defense, and he could wind up getting hurt by Zhan, who is even more of a puncher than Martin.
“The one thing he does wrong, which was leaning back, Martin came up short quite a few times,” said Porter. “We got to give Martin credit because his switch was turned on. He didn’t come in here expecting to lose, make some money, and lay down.
Wow, big move, #JaredAnderson coming right back in late August on #ESPN, that's a ballsy move especially because the July 1 Charles Martin fight was very rough & tough. This move of fighting back to back months for a main event fighter is unprecedented in this era. This is…
— Rick Glaser (@RealRickGlaser1) July 7, 2023
“He had a game plan, and I think the game plan backfired. His game plan was to let the young lion [Jared] get gassed, and I think along the way, he took some shots he didn’t expect to take.
“I think in the fifth round is where he [Martin] let it all out. The tenth round, the kid was still there and got caught,” said Porter about Jared getting hurt in round ten by Martin and being out on his feet as the bell rung to end the round.
