JARED ANDERSON is hoping to step up the competition after facing Charles Martin on Saturday night.
The two American heavyweights headline the Top Rank card at the Huntington Centre in Toledo which also serves as a homecoming for Anderson.
After an impressive start to his career the 23-year-old now takes on the veteran 37-year-old Martin who replaced Zhan Kossobutskiy following his withdrawal due to visa issues. The Californian southpaw, a one-time opponent of Anthony Joshua’s, almost pulled off a much-needed morale boosting win against Luis Ortiz in 2022. Their up and down contest ended when Martin was stopped in the sixth.
Beating ‘Prince Charles’ will tick off another box for Anderson 14-0 (14) who is tipped by many to reach the top of the heavyweight division.
“I’m the heavyweight killer,” he told FightHype.
“We stopping all of them. We coming through to beat everybody and anybody we need to beat. I definitely think I’ll be a southpaw slayer Saturday night.”
On the same card fellow unbeaten heavyweight Arslanbek Makhmudov fights in his 17th contest against Raphael Akpeijori in the night’s chief support bout. The Russian, co-promoted by Top Rank, could be a future opponent for Anderson who despite not committing to that topic did remark on an interview Makhmudov gave which Saturday’s headline attraction had been tagged into on Instagram.
“He was stuttering a lot when they asked him about me. I ain’t seen the whole interview. I know English ain’t his first language, I understand that, but he was all over the place when they asked what he would do about that fight (against Anderson). I ain’t gonna say that he will be the next fight. I think there’s a lot of other fighters who wouldn’t accept that fight if we called them.
“I’m not gonna say my next fight is gonna be anyone in the top ten because there’s still a lot of people who don’t wanna fight me, but I will go as to say that I do think after this fight it’s nothing but step ups and higher competition.”