Jared Anderson, the leading American heavyweight prospect, will face his toughest challenge yet when he fights Martin Bakole on August 3 in Los Angeles.
Anderson was initially slated to fight former champion Deontay Wilder during the Riyadh Season event headlined by Terence Crawford versus Israil Madrimov. However, Wilder's brutal fifth-round TKO loss to Zhilei Zhang on Saturday eliminated him from consideration.
Instead, Anderson will now face Bakole, marking his first top-level opponent. Bakole, 30, hailing from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is ranked No. 10 heavyweight by ESPN. He is also the younger brother of former cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu.
Anderson, who trains in Houston and is ranked No. 8 heavyweight by ESPN, will be facing a much larger opponent than his previous bout. Standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing 250.9 pounds, Anderson dominated the smaller Ryad Merhy, who is 5-11 and weighed 235.6 pounds, over ten rounds in April. However, Bakole, who is 6-6 and weighed in at 299.5 pounds for his fourth-round TKO victory over Carlos Takam in December in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, poses a different challenge.
Bakole's career highlights include handing Olympic gold medalist Tony Yoka his first loss in May 2022 by majority decision. His only defeat came in October 2018 via a 10th-round TKO to Michael Hunter, whose only loss was to undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in an April 2017 cruiserweight title fight.
Anderson's victory over Mehry marked his return to the ring following a series of legal issues. He was arrested in February in Michigan after leading police on a high-speed chase exceeding 130 mph. In December, he pleaded no contest to improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle, with an OVI charge dropped from a November 2023 arrest in Ohio.
The August 3 Riyadh Season card in Los Angeles, organized by Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, will be the first held outside the Kingdom. The event will feature Crawford seeking a fourth division title in a junior middleweight championship fight against Madrimov.
You can read more about this event here.
Image Credit: Sky Sports