By Brian Webber: Heavyweight contender Jared Anderson will be making a quick turnaround this Saturday, August 26th, when he faces Andriy Rudenko in a 10-round fight at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tulsa.
Perhaps the reason for bringing the 23-year-old Jared Anderson back so soon after his fight last July against Charles Martin was how poor he looked in that fight, getting hurt twice with left hands by the former IBF champion.
Although Jared denies being hurt by the 6’5″, he clearly was out on his feet twice in the fight after being caught while backing straight up, using a Shakur Stevenson move but not performing it well.
That’s a move that Anderson needs to stop using because the better heavyweights in the division will take advantage of that if he continues to use it.
Shakur still gets away with using it, but that’s because he hasn’t fought anyone super-talented in the pro ranks yet. It failed him against Robeisy Ramirez in the Olympics and will fail Jared if he keeps using it.
Anderson admits that it wasn’t a great performance from him, but he fails to mention that he looked just as bad in his fight with journeyman Jerry Forrest last December. Jared was rocked in that fight as well, getting caught with a huge right hand that stunned him in the second round.
On paper, Anderson vs. Rudenko is the third-best fight on the card, trailing the co-feature bout between heavyweight Efe Ajagba and Zhan Kossobutskiy.
The most talented fighter on the card is arguably heavyweight Bakhodir Jalolov, who is taking on Onoriode Ehwarieme in an eight-round contest.
The card will be shown at 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT on ESPN, ESPN Deportes and ESPN+.
The gold chain-wearing Anderson claims he’s “broke” and looking to make money. If Jared has depleted all the money he’s made from his past fights, it might be a good idea to stop buying gold chains and start selling them.
The way Jared has looked in his recent fights, Top Rank needs to start thinking about unloading this guy if he doesn’t begin showing improvement.
Jared Anderson: “I’m broke”
“I feel like I fell asleep and got bored in the middle rounds. That’s when I got hit with a shot,” said Jared Anderson to Fighthype about his recent difficult ten-round fight against Charles Martin on July 1st.
“I’m broke. I’m looking to make as much money as I can. So I can get out as quickly as I can.”
If Anderson struggles against Rudenko on Saturday night, it’ll be interesting to see how much longer Top Rank will put him in main event fights.
That might be better off focusing on putting Jalalov in the headliner spots and stowing Jared away to the undercard slots because he’s not impressive. Even when Anderson wins, his style is boring.
“To all the experts and critics. Keep talking, keep saying what you want. You’re opinionated, and your opinions do not get me paid. Keep saying whatever you want, but you’re not the ones writing the check. It don’t affect me. It don’t affect me, I’m a grown man, and I’m an adult.
“I’m more popular as far as being a better heavyweight than what most people think. They’ll [boxing fans] turn on you in a second. The love will turn to hate in a split second.
“People can scream all day long that they think I was hurt, but I was not ever hurt in that fight. I continued to catch shots right after he hit me, and then I looked to the clock to let him burt himself out because I knew he had over a minute and a half left.
“I succeeded in my plan. It worked perfectly for me. He exhausted himself. In the sixth round, I took back over the fight and the generalship of the fight. I wasn’t able to get him out of there, but I was more happy with that.
“I showed that I could go the distance and showed that I could do it well from round one to round ten. I felt like I did good,” said Anderson.
Anderson not worried about Rudenko
“We shall see. I definitely think styles make fights, and people have to actually get in there with the person to understand what they’re capable of,” said Jared about his fight with Andriy Rudenko on Saturday night.
Top Rank’s decision to match Anderson against the 39-year-old Rudenko is a backward move. They likely were concerned about Jared after his performance against Martin, and they must know that he’s not ready to be put in against better opposition.
“I’ve seen him stand there with some great guys. I think [Zhilei] Zhang is a big puncher, and he stood ten rounds in there with him the entire time, taking his shots,” said Anderson. “So we shall see what my power does to him.
“I’m a very up-and-down type of fighter; I go to the body and to the head. So we try to see what he can take.
“It wasn’t a really bad performance last fight [against Charles Martin]. It just was a thing that I could have corrected. If they get corrected in this fight, they may or they may not.
“I’m not saying I didn’t work on those things. So I never predict anything because you don’t honestly know what’s going to happen until you get in there and you get a feel for what his speed is like, what his power is like.
“Is he fighting dirty? Things like that. It’s a lot of stuff people don’t ever take into account into a fight, So I’ll see what he has. Me personally, I don’t see him causing a whole lot of problems because of his size rather than people who are bigger and taller and stuff like that.
“I’m still going to be quick, sharp, and staying on top of my game. Yeah, definitely. I have no problem having that fight [Zhan Kossobutskiy] next. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened with it. I’m not against fighting anybody in this sport for the money.
“If he’s not getting the most money fighting Usyk, then he doesn’t care for the fight because he feels he proved everything he needs to everybody out,” said Jaredd about his friend Tysoon Fury choosing not to fight for the undisputed heavyweight championship against unified champ Oleksandr Usyk.
