Martin Bakole is the talk of the heavyweight division following his American debut, putting a punishing beating on rising star Jared Anderson to prove he is as dangerous as he has always claimed.
The 31-year-old from Congo let Anderson’s punches bounce off him in the first before scoring a heavy knockdown with seconds to go. The American managed to stick and move for a few rounds before touching the canvas again in the fifth, twice, before the referee saved him from further punishment.
It was the biggest stage of Bakole’s career and one that he needed to shine on having become known for his sparring stories than his fights.
One of those involved dropping and stopping the recently undisputed champion Oleksandr Usyk, who, in response, told fans not to believe everything they hear.
Bakole has one single blemish on his record, delivered by former Usyk opponent in the cruiserweight ranks, Michael Hunter. Hunter spoke to Seconds Out and said that only he and the Ukrainian have the beating of Bakole.
“I think that he beats everybody other than Usyk and I. There’s a lot of other people that can compete with him and it’d be maybe a toss-up, but I do think that he’s one of the top heavyweights out there. As you can see he displayed it, a beautiful performance. I think that was the best fight of the night. There wasn’t much I could say. His American debut. Other than he should fight the number one American heavyweight instead of the number two.”
Bakole, fighting out of Scotland, should now get the big fights he has been searching for with the backing of Riyadh Season’s Turki Alalshikh. Despite calling for the Hunter rematch in the ring post-fight, he’s much more likely to fight a more active contender who has featured on some of the Saudi shows.
