Heavyweight Jared Anderson (17-1, 15 KOs) needs an impressive showing next month against Marios Kollias (12-3-1, 10 KOs) on Friday, February 14th, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. This is a fight designed to rebuild Anderon’s confidence after what happened to him in his last fight on August 3rd.
Bakole Nightmare
The Top Rank-promoted ‘Big Baby’ Anderson, 25, was destroyed by Martin Bakole in five rounds last August, and he looked awful in that fight. Jared was utterly overmatched from the jump, getting dropped in the first round. The fight would have ended in the first round if the knockdown had occurred earlier because Anderson looked gone after getting up.
Bakole was too powerful for Anderson. In the fifth, he knocked Anderson down twice more to get the knockout. It wasn’t even sporting. Promoter Bob Arum hasn’t given up on Jared, but you have to believe that he’ll give up on him soon if he continues to perform like that.
If you’re Arum, you must consider dumping Anderson overboard if he looks bad against the little-known Kollias. This is a confidence-booster type of fight for Jared, but if he looked terrible here, Arum needs to get rid of him. He’s still young enough to improve, but his punch resistance, lack of power, and timid way of fighting make it unlikely that he can be improved.
Anderson looks good when he’s throwing combinations and attacking weak prey, but he looked terrible against Bakole. The guys at the top of the heavyweight division are getting pretty old.
So, there is a chance that Jared can capture one of the belts once the old guys retire, but not if he faces anyone with power, like Bakole or even Zhilei Zhang. He’s 41, but still way too dangerous for Anderson. If Arum can protect Jared long enough, he might be able to capture a belt at some point. He would have to keep him away from anyone with power because he’ll get destroyed like he did against Bakole.
This wasn’t the first time that Anderson had looked chinny. He’d been hurt in his fights against Jerry Forrest and Charles Martin. Those fights showed that Jared’s ability to hang with even lower-level fighters is just not there. He’s too fragile. That’s what I would do.
Arum Still Believes In Jared
Anderson-Kollias will fight a 10-rounder on the undercard of Denys Berinchyk vs. Keyshawn Davis on ESPN and ESPN+.
“I still believe Jared Anderson is one of the most formidable heavyweights in the world, and I expect him to return with a vengeance this year,” said Arum.
Keyshawn Davis is another of Arum’s projects he’s trying to turn into a star. However, he will need to be protected just like Jared. He has already had problems in his fights against Nahir Albright and Miguel Madueno.
Keyshawn resembled a WWE wrestler against Madueno, and it’s the referee didn’t disqualify him for all the roughhouse tactics he used in that fight. Davis looked desperate to win and emptied the cupboards for any trick he could to keep Madueno from knocking him out.
Andy Cruz worked Keyshawn over in the 2020 Olympics, easily beating him in a one-sided fight for the gold medal in the finals. It was surprising that Arum chose to sign Keyshawn after that loss rather than Cruz. I guess he’s figuring he can build him with his ability to trash-talk rather than fight.
