Top Rank got some bad news today about their fighter, heavyweight contender Jared Anderson, who they are pushing towards becoming a world champion, who was arrested Monday morning for “improperly handling firearms in a vehicle, according to ESPN.
Mike Coppinger reports that the 23-year-old Jared Anderson was “under the influence of alcohol or drugs” and spent eight hours after his arrest at the Lucas County Corrections Center records. They let the 6’4″ Ohio native Jared out of jail around noon.
Obviously, this is not good news for Top Rank because they’re grooming Jared Anderson towards stardom. It’s unclear why Anderson had a gun on him in an automobile, as he’s not a superstar yet to where he would need to carry a firearm with him for protection.
Interestingly, Anderson might not even be the second-best heavyweight in the Top Rank stable, as they have Tyson Fury and Arslanbek Makhmudov, who would likely beat Jared without any problems.
Jared’s an excellent fighter, but he hasn’t shown the kind of talent that suggests that he can capture a world title and defend it against all comers without the need of being protected by Top Rank.
Anderson is marketable, though, and he can be packaged and sold to the U.S. boxing public as long as he’s not thrown to the wolves.
In recent fights, Anderson stopped 39-year-old journeyman Andriy Rudenko in the fifth round last August.
Before that, Jared looked poor, getting hurt twice in beating 38-year-old former IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin by an unimpressive 10 round unanimous decision last July.
In that fight, Martin took advantage of Anderson’s habit of pulling straight back after delivering a punch and went after him to stagger him. Later in the fight, Anderson started celebrating with ten seconds to go in the final round, raising his hands up in the air in victory in a show-boating move.
Martin took advantage of Anderson’s early celebration by clocking him with a big left to the head that caused his legs to wobble. It was obviously an embarrassing moment for Jared to be staggered while he was celebrating.
WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury recently proclaimed Jared Anderson the “heir to my throne,” which was hard to take seriously, given how poor he looked against Martin.
We’ll what direction Top Rank wants to move Jared because he’s not shown the kind of power or talent to where you can put him in with someone dangerous like Deontay Wilder, Arslanbek Makhmudov, Martin Bakole or Anthony Joshua.