Heavyweight Jared Anderson (17-1, 15 KOs) needs an impressive performance next month against Marios Kollias (12-3-1, 10 KOs) on Friday, February 14 at the Madison Square Garden Theater 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.
Nightmare Prisoners
The 25-year-old “Big Baby” Anderson, promoted by Top Rank, was destroyed by Martin Bakole in five rounds last August, and he looked awful in that fight. Jared was overtaken from the jump, he fell in the first round. The fight would have ended in the first round if the knockdown had happened earlier because Anderson appeared to be gone after getting up.
Bakole was too powerful for Anderson. In the fifth, he knocked Anderson down twice more to get the knockout. He wasn’t even sporty. Promoter Bob Arum hasn’t given up on Jared, but you have to believe he will soon if he keeps doing this.
If you’re Arum, you should consider throwing Anderson overboard if he looks bad against the little-known Kollias. This is kind of a confidence-building fight for Jared, but if he looks terrible here, Arum needs to get rid of him. He is 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 throws combinations and attacks 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 someone with power, like Bakole or even Zhilei Zhang. He’s 41 years old, but he’s still too dangerous for Anderson. If Arum can protect Jared long enough, he might be able to capture a belt at some point. He had to keep him away from all those in power because he will be destroyed like he did against Bakole.
It wasn’t the first time Anderson had seen chinny. He had been injured in his fight against Jerry Forrest and Charles Martin. Those fights showed that Jared’s ability to hang with even lower level fighters isn’t just there. It is 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 that Jared Anderson is one of the most formidable heavyweights in the world, and I expect him to come back with a vengeance this year,” Arum said.
Keyshawn Davis is another of Arum’s projects that is trying to turn into a star. However, he has to be protected like Jared. He already had problems in his fight against Nahir Albright and Miguel Madueno.
Keyshawn looks like a WWE wrestler against Madueno, and it’s because the referee didn’t disqualify him for all the rough tactics he used in that fight. Davis seemed desperate to win and looked to the armory for any trick he could to prevent Madueno from knocking him out.
Andy Cruz worked Keyshawn in the 2020 Olympics, easily beating him in a one-sided fight for the gold medal in the final. It was surprising that Arum chose to sign Keyshawn after the loss instead of Cruz. I think he thinks he can build him up with his ability to talk trash rather than fight.
