Paulie Malignaggi thinks heavyweight Martin Bakole should have been brought back for Turki Al-Shiekh’s cards in Riyadh after upsetting previously undefeated Jared Anderson on the August 3rd 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 scoring an impressive knockout in the fifth round.
Overlooked and underappreciated
Anderson, 25, was a heavily hyped fighter groomed by his promoters at Top Rank to be the next great American heavyweight, replacing the aging Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Bakole ruined things by destroying Jared in a three-strikeout performance, and his career is now on shaky legs.
The Riyadh cards need higher standards for those who fight on them because too many fighters don’t belong. For example, the December 21st card only had one good fighter on the undercard, Serhii Bohachuk, and the rest were awful.
Bakole deserved more to be in the main event challenging unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk than an old, bearded, washed-up Tyson Fury.
No Riyadh return
“You talk about the Jared Anderson-Bakole fight. That fight was about Jared Anderson. It ended up being a freebie for Martin Bakole,” said Paulie Malignaggi Probox TVtalks about Jared Anderson’s loss to Martin Bakole on Turki Al-Shiekh’s August 3 card in Los Angeles.
“We can see in hindsight that it was not about Bakole, because no one brought Bakole back. I feel he was treated unfairly. He should have been brought back. It was kind of a freebie for Jared Anderson that turned into a freebie for Bakole, and now he’s being punished for it. I feel that Bakole should be brought back.
“If you’re going to do it, there has to be a standard set. There are many positives. I wouldn’t say it’s criticism. I would say it’s constructive criticism in some ways because there’s so much to praise about what’s going on there (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia),” Malignaggi said.
It does appear 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 had been promoted by one of those companies, he might have been brought back for the December 21st card.
“At the same time, there are things that can be done better, and you want to see this sport and the fighters grow. Some of that is knowing when to compensate high and when not to compensate high,” Malignaggi said.
Many of the fighters on Turki’s cards are those recommended by the British promoters, and many of them are hype jobs, domestic level scrubs, or older guys over the hill. We see Tyson Fury & Anthony being paid ridiculous amounts of money despite being washed up.
It would be better for the sport if the guys from the past were phased out, and Turki would say no to promoters trying to pack the cards with fighters who aren’t world class, who don’t belong on big 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.
