Highly-rated American prospect Jared Anderson suffered a devastating knockout loss at the hands of Martin Bakole in his 18th outing – a fight his promoter Bob Arum has now said he was against taking.
Bakole proved his claims of being one of the most dangerous heavyweights in the division when he demolished Anderson, letting the younger man’s shots bounce off him before striking with quick, heavy hands. Anderson was down three times before the fight was stopped in the fifth round.
Speaking on the Big Fight Weekend podcast, Arum said that he ‘wasn’t surprised’ Anderson lost in the ‘stupid’ match-up.
“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.”
Anderson caught wind of the comments and replied via social media.
“Hope this doesn’t surprise y’all. We all know how he get down.”
Hope this didn’t surprise yall lol we all know how he get down https://t.co/yTIthtuxtw
— Jared BigBaby🍼 Anderson (@TeamBigBabyy) October 21, 2024
When the 24-year-old may return to the ring is not yet clear. Off the back of the win, Bakole has been ordered to face Agit Kabayel with the winner earning a shot at the current IBF World Champion, Daniel Dubois.
