‘We Were Against That Fight’: Bob Arum Reflects on Jared Anderson vs. Martin Bakole

Heavyweight boxing has enjoyed a golden period since the involvement of Riyadh Season and His Excellency Turki Alalshikh, with Tyson Fury taking on Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight crown and many other memorable fights taking place, such as Daniel Dubois vs. Anthony Joshua. Bob Arum the Top Rank CEO recently spoke to Dan Rafael for a special Fight Freaks Unite/Big Fight Weekend podcast, where he revealed fascinating insights into the matchmaking process for Jared Anderson vs. Martin Bakole on August 3 this year.

Bob Arum Discusses Jared Anderson After Martin Bakole Defeat

Top Rank Reveal Stance on Anderson vs. Bakole Fight

During Arum’s interview with Rafael, they spoke about Jared Anderson and where his mind may be following his tough loss to Bakole: “I don’t know where his mind is now because he just had his first child. He’s probably concentrating on that, but I’ll leave that up to the matchmakers.”

The Top Rank CEO then revealed how the Bakole-Anderson fight occurred: “I want everybody to know that it wasn’t us. His Excellency Turki Alalshikh went right to the fighter and made this proposal for money that the fighter had never seen before and picked as his opponent, Bakole who is a tremendous puncher and Jared prepared to deal with a guy who couldn’t move very much but was a great puncher and he never fought a guy like that. So the fact he got taken apart and got knocked out was not surprising.”

To hear the Bob Arum interview in full with Dan Rafael, click the play button below.

Matchmaking

He added: “So don’t put it on my matchmakers. We were against that fight. Again, when they wave money at these kids, they insist on taking it. We could have gone to court to prevent it, but we don’t do those kind of things. We let the fight go ahead. We made our money from the fight but we let that fight go ahead and it was the stupidest fight Jared could have taken.”