By Brian Webber: Jared Anderson says he’d like for his next fight to be against top 10 ranked heavyweight contender Frank Sanchez after taking care of Andriy Rudenko by a fifth round knockout last Saturday night at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tulsa.
It’s unknown if Anderson’s promoters at Top Rank would agree to let him fight the 6’4″ Cuban Sanchez (22-0, 15 KOs) because he’s quite a step up from the journeyman Rudenko and the 37-year-old Charles Martin.
Top Rank boss Bob Arum had a gleam in his eyes last Saturday night when speaking about turning the 23-year-old Anderson (16-0, 15 KOs) into the next big U.S. heavyweight star.
The problem is, Jared doesn’t seem to realize that he’s being protected from the talented opposition that would wreck his career if Arum exposed him to the shark-infested heavyweight division, with fighters that haven’t been protected and don’t need to because they have real talent.
Jared Anderson being marketed
Arum is clearly thinking about the kind of superstar Jared can become with his help and the mega-phone that ESPN gives him to reach millions of viewers.
It doesn’t matter if Anderson is a fake, manufactured fighter, created to make him look like Frankenstein monster to the unknowing casual boxing fans. He can be sold to the consumers with the right matchmaking & marketing.
You could tell from looking at Arum and listening to what he’s saying that he will protect Anderson like a guard dog protecting a henhouse from the wolves that would want to raid it.
Anderson looks like a good heavyweight, but he’s not a young Mike Tyson type that you could throw in with anyone and expect him to win.
Indeed, Anderson is the type of fighter who needs to be carefully matched not just now but his entire career because he will always be vulnerable.
The flaws that we saw from Anderson against Martin and Jerry Forest are here to stay permanently. Hence, Arum will need to keep Jared far, far away from these killers in the division:
- Tyson Fury
- Deontay Wilder
- Bakhodir Jalolov
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Arslanbek Makhmudov
- Anthony Joshua
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Frank Sanchez
- Martin Bakole
- Zhilei Zhang
- Joe Joyce
Anderson wants a real opponent
“I meant everything I said, and it kind of speaks for itself. I meant that I’m taking the right steps in order to be the best heavyweight in the world,” said Jared Anderson to Showtime Sports.
“I think it’s a few different fights. I can’t be specific about who Anderson should fight to prove to the boxing public that he can fight. “I just focus on who is in front of me.
“Maybe Frank Sanchez. A lot of people put him in my comments a lot. I think that would be great fight. A boxer vs. a boxer. Whether people don’t want to call me a boxer or not, I know I’m a boxer, and I know I can box. Maybe Michael Hunter.”
Arum might be open to putting Anderon in with Hunter, but definitely not Frank Sanchez. That guy has actual talent, and he would wreak havoc with a green fighter like Anderson, with his weak chin and his pull-back style.
What Arum is likely going to do is continue to match Anderson against washed-up fighters and wait until Fury, Joshua, Usyk, and Wilder either retire or old & feeble before allowing Jared to fight them.
In Wilder’s, Arum will likely never let Jared anywhere near him because he’s the type of fighter with nuclear power in his right hand, even into his 50s.
Jared in denial
“To clarify, I was NOT buzzed in that fight,” said Anderson about his fight last July against former IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin on ESPN.
Anderson was definitely hurt twice, and really bad in the tenth round after he was caught with a left hand from Martin while celebrating.
Jared went into early celebration mode with 15 seconds left in the fight, and Martin took exception to that and nailed him. As the fight ended, Jared was swaying back & forth like a drunk coming out of a bar.
“I held my own. If you go back and look, I blocked two or three shots, even after being hit with that shot. I was completely aware. Me looking at the clock was me letting him burn himself out for the rest of the round, which actually worked.
“Just stay active. Staying ready so that when those big fights do come that I’ll be 100% ready. The biggest lesson was outside of the ring,” said Jared when asked what the biggest lesson he learned from his fight with Martin.
“I already had my doubts about how people looked at me, which really don’t matter. As you can tell how I spoke before and how I speak today, I’m going to continue to do me. All the backlash that came with it. People really doubt you and don’t understand what’s going on in that ring.
“The People around me, they honestly knew. Once we talked and I had conversations with them, they understood what I was doing and what I went through in that ring. But they also knew what happened before the camp, before everything else, dealing with pressures and fight week at home. All the other stuff.
“Once again, he was the same one that said two weeks prior, ‘He’s ready for Anthony Joshua right now,’ and I still 100% believe that,” said Jared Anderson about Tim Bradley of ESPN saying he is not ready for the top names yet in the heavyweight division.
“It just goes to show how quick they’ll turn on you and how quickly their confidence will change because I took one good shot [from Martin], and obviously, like I said. He [Bradley] doesn’t break down fights correctly because if you watch the round, I catch, catch, and caught two shots directly after.
“I’m not saying I did that perfectly and finished that round out great because I still got hit with a couple of different shots. But if you honestly look at the fight and break down the fight, you’ll understand that I was never out of that fight.
“I was never wobbly on my legs where they thought they could wave it off or nothing like that. It just lets me know to keep letting them talk, and I’m going to prove them wrong.
“I believe I can be a king, or I’m a king already, and I’m going to be a king for who I am and what I stand for. How I speak, how I talk, how I walk,” said Anderson.
