Bakole ‘Punished’ by Anderson Upset?

Paulie Malignaggi believes heavyweight Martin Bakole should have been reinstated by Turki Al-Shiekh’s cards in Riyadh after he upset undefeated 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 hasn’t been invited back despite scoring an impressive fifth-round knockout .

Overlooked and underrated

Anderson, 25, was a highly touted fighter being groomed by his Top Rank promoters to be the next great American heavyweight, replacing the aging Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Bakole ruined things by destroying Jared in a three-knockdown performance, and his career is now on shaky feet.

Riyadh cards need higher standards for those who fight because there are too many fighters who don’t belong there. 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 looking Tyson Fury.

No return to Riyadh

“You talk about the Jared Anderson-Bakole fight. That fight was about Jared Anderson. It ended up being a gift for Martin Bakole,” said Paulie Malignaggi Probox TVdiscussing Jared Anderson’s loss to Martin Bakole on the Aug. 3 Turki Al-Shiekh card in Los Angeles.

“We can say in hindsight that it wasn’t about Bakole because nobody brought Bakole. I feel like he’s been treated unfairly. He should have been given back. It was kind of a gift for Jared Anderson that he became a gift to Bakole, and now he is being punished for it.I think he should be taken to Bakole.

“If you’re going to do this, there needs to be a standard set. There’s a lot of positives. I wouldn’t say it’s a criticism. I’d say it’s a constructive criticism in a way because there’s a lot to praise about what’s going on there (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia),” Malignaggi said.

It looks like Bakole was punished for beating A-side fighter Jared Anderson. However, Matchroom and Queensberry do not promote Bakole, two of the promotional companies that Turki uses as a source for fighters to fill their Riyadh season cards. If Bakole had been promoted by one of these companies, he could have been returned 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. Part of that is knowing when to overcompensate and when not to overcompensate,” Malignaggi said.

Many of the fighters on Turki’s cards are the ones recommended by British promoters, and many of them are hype jobs, domestic level scrubs or bigger boys from the mountain. We see Tyson Fury and Anthony getting paid ridiculous amounts of money despite being washed up.

It would be better for the sport if the main players of the past were phased out, and Turki would say no to promoters trying to pack cards with non-world class fighters who don’t belong on the main cards.

The recent December 21st card was loaded with limited wrestlers that fans outside of the UK have never heard of before and will hopefully never hear about again.