Bakole “punished” for Anderson’s discomfort?

Paulie Malignaggi believes heavyweight Martin Bakole should have returned for the Turki Al-Shiekh cards in Riyadh after he defeated previously 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 has not been invited to return despite scoring an impressive fifth-round knockout.

Overlooked and undervalued

Anderson, 25, was a highly touted fighter who was being 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-knockdown performance, and his career is now on the rocks.

Riyadh cards need higher standards for those who fight on them because many fighters do not belong. For example, the December 21st card only had one good fighter on the card, Serhii Bohachuk, and the rest were horrible.

Bakole deserved more to be in the main event challenging unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk than an old, bearded, worn-out looking Tyson Fury.

No return to Riyadh

“You talk about the fight between Jared Anderson and Bakole. That fight was over Jared Anderson. It ended up being a gift for Martin Bakole,” Paulie Malignaggi told TV Proboxtalking about Jared Anderson’s loss to Martin Bakole on the Turki Al-Shiekh undercard on August 3 in Los Angeles.

“We can say, looking back, that it wasn’t about Bakole because no one brought Bakole back. I feel like he’s been treated unfairly. I should have brought him back. That was kind of a gift to Jared Anderson that became a gift to Bakole, and now he’s being punished for it. I feel like Bakole should come back.

“If you’re going to do this, there needs to be a set of standards. There are many positive aspects. I wouldn’t say it’s a criticism. I would say it is constructive criticism in a way because there is a lot to praise about what has been happening there (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia),” Malignaggi said.

It looks like Bakole has been punished for beating A-side wrestler Jared Anderson. However, Bakole is not promoted by Matchroom and Queensberry, two of the promotion companies Turki uses as a source of fighters to fill his Riyadh season cards. Had Bakole been promoted by one of those companies, it’s possible they would have brought him back for the December 21 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 those recommended by British promoters, and many of them are promotional jobs, national level scrubs or older, over-the-top guys. We see that Tyson Fury and Anthony are paid ridiculous amounts of money despite being broke.

It would be better for the sport if the best fighters of the past were eliminated, and Turki would say no to promoters who try to fill cards with fighters who are not world-class and who do not belong on the main cards.

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