Paulie Malignaggi thinks heavyweight Martin Bakole should have been brought back for Turki Al-Shiekh’s cards in Riyadh after he upset the previously unbeaten 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’s not been invited back despite scoring an impressive fifth-round knockout.
Overlooked & Undervalued
Anderson, 25, was a heavily hyped fighter 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 shaky legs.
The Riyadh cards need higher standards for those fighting on them because too many fighters don’t belong. For example, the December 21st card had only one good fighter on the undercard, Serhii Bohachuk, and the rest was horrible.
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 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 to Probox TV, talking about Jared Anderson’s loss to Martin Bakole on Turki Al-Shiekh’s card on August 3rd in Los Angeles.
“We can tell, looking at it in hindsight, that it wasn’t about Bakole because nobody brought Bakole back. I feel like he’s been treated unfairly. He should have been brought back. That was sort 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 this, there needs to be a standard set. There’s a lot of positives. I wouldn’t say it’s criticism. I’d say it’s constructive criticism in some ways because there’s so much to praise about what’s been going on there [Riyadh, Saudi Arabia],” said Malignaggi.
It does seem as if Bakole has been punished for beating the A-side fighter Jared Anderson. However, Matchroom and Queensberry don’t promote Bakole, two of the promotional companies that Turki uses as his source for fighters to fill his Riyadh Season cards. If Bakole were promoted by one of those companies, he might have been brought back for the December 21st card.
“At the same time, there’s things that can be done better, and you want to see this sport and the fighters grow. Some of that is to know when to compensate highly and when not to overcompensate highly,” said Malignaggi.
Many of the fighters on Turki’s cards are the ones that the British promoters are recommending, and many of them are hype jobs, domestic-level scrubs, or older over-the-hill guys. We see Tyson Fury & Anthony being paid ridiculous amounts of money despite being washed up.
It would be better for the sport if the past prime guys were phased out, and Turki would say no to promoters who try to pack the cards with non-world-level fighters who don’t belong on major cards.
The recent December 21st card was loaded with limited fighters that fans outside of the UK had never heard of before and hopefully will never hear about again.
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