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 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.
Prisoner Nightmare
The ‘Big Baby’ Anderson (25) who was promoted to the highest ranking, was destroyed by Martin Bakole in five rounds last August, and he looked awful in that fight. Jared was completely overmatched from the jump and dropped in the first round. The fight would have ended in the first round if the knockdown had happened 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 sport. Promoter Bob Arum hasn’t given up on Jared, but you have to believe he will soon if he continues to perform like this.
If you’re Arum, you should consider ditching Anderson if he looks bad against the unknown Kollias. This is a confidence booster type fight for Jared, but if he looked terrible here, Arum needs to get rid of him. He is still young enough to improve, but his hit resistance, lack of power and timid way of fighting make it unlikely that he can be improved.
Anderson looks good throwing combos 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 could grab 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 far too dangerous for Anderson. If Arum can protect Jared long enough, he might be able to capture a belt at some point. He will have to stay away from anyone with power because he will be destroyed like he did against Bakole.
It wasn’t the first time Anderson looked skinny. He was hurt in his fights against Jerry Forrest and Charles Martin. Those fights showed that Jared’s ability to hang with even lower-level fighters just isn’t there. He 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 one of Arum’s projects that he is 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 looked like a WWE wrestler against Madueno, and it’s the referee who 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 stop Madueno from knocking him out.
Andy Cruz outworked Keyshawn in the 2020 Olympics, easily beating him in a one-sided battle for the gold medal in the finals. It was surprising that Arum chose to sign Keyshawn over Cruz after that loss. I think he thinks he can build him with his ability to talk rather than fight.
 needs an impressive showing next month against Marios Kollias (12-3-1, 10 KOs) on Friday, February 14th, at The){kind=link}