Paulie Malignaggi thinks heavyweight Martin Bakole should be brought back for the Turki Al-Shiekh cards in Riyadh after defeating previously unbeaten Jared Anderson on the August 3 card in Los Angeles, California.
Malignaggi says the fight was obviously about Anderson (17-1, 15 KOs), not Bakole (21-1, 16 KOs) because he wasn’t invited back despite an impressive fifth round KO.
Overlooked and underrated
Anderson, 25, was a highly hyped fighter who was being groomed by his promoters at Top Rank to be the next great American heavyweight, replacing the former Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Bakole ruined things by destroying Jared in a three-fight performance, and his career is now on shaky legs.
The Riyadh cards require higher standards for those who fight on them because too many fighters don’t belong. For example, the December 21st card had only one good fighter in the undercard, Serhii Bohachuk, and the rest was horrible.
Bakole deserved more to be in the main event challenging unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk than an old, bearded, washed out looking Tyson Fury.
No return to Riyadh
“Talk about the Jared Anderson-Bakole fight. This fight was Jared Anderson’s. It ended up being a freebie for Martin Bakole,” said Paulie Malignaggi Probox TVThey talk about Jared Anderson’s loss to Martin Bakole on the Turki Al-Shiekh card on August 3rd in Los Angeles.
“We can say, looking back, that it wasn’t about Bakole because no one brought Bakole. I felt he was treated unfairly. Il aurait dû être ramené. It was kind of a tribute to Jared Anderson that he turned in a tribute to Bakole, and now he was punished for it. I feel that Bakole should be brought back.
“If you’re going to do this, there needs to be a standard set. There are a lot of positives. I wouldn’t say it’s a criticism. I’d say it’s a constructive criticism in some ways because there’s so much to praise about what’s going on here ( Riyadh, Saudi Arabia),” Malignaggi said.
It appears that Bakole was punished for beating A-side fighter Jared Anderson. However, Matchroom and Queensberry do not promote Bakole, two of the promotional companies Turki uses as his source for fighters to fill his Riyadh Season cards. If Bakole was promoted by one of these companies, he could have been brought for the December 21 card.
“At the same time, there are things that can be better, and you want to see this sport and the fighters grow. Some of that is knowing when to overcompensate and when not to overcompensate,” Malignaggi said.
Many of the fighters on Turki’s cards are ones that British promoters recommend, and many of them are hype jobs, domestic level scrubs, or older guys from the mountain. We see Tyson Fury & Anthony being paid ridiculous amounts of money despite being washed up.
It would be better for the sport if the top prizes of the past were eliminated, and Turki would say no to the promoters who try to pack the cards with non-world fighters who do not belong to the major cards.
The recent December 21st card was loaded with limited fighters that fans outside of the UK have never heard of before and hopefully will never hear of again.
