Highlights: Jared Anderson dominates, stops Andriy Rudenko in five

Jared Anderson had no trouble with Andriy Rudenko tonight in Tulsa.

Jared Anderson battered the body of veteran Andriy Rudenko tonight en route to a fifth round stoppage in the Top Rank main event from Tulsa.

Anderson (16-0, 15 KO) never did drop Rudenko (35-7, 21 KO), which says a lot about the 39-year-old veteran’s remaining durability and toughness, but he finally put enough punches together to get referee Gary Ritter to step in at 1:40 of round five.

Anderson, 23, was focused on the body for the entire fight, even when he would switch stances and go southpaw, and also showcased a sharp, snappy, heavy jab from both stances, and landed that to both the body and head.

It was the second fight in 56 days for Toledo’s “Big Baby,” who won a 10-round decision over Charles Martin on July 1 in his last outing, as ESPN and Top Rank continue to build buzz for a promising young American heavyweight with style, skills, power, and personality.

CompuBox saw Anderson landing 141 of 279 (50.5%) of his total punches, and landed a career-high 72 body shots overall, 56 power shots and 16 jabs.

“I’m enjoying the ride, enjoying the fights, and just doing my job,” Anderson told Bernardo Osuna in the ring. “(Body shots) were part of the plan. We know you gotta start with the body and the head will fall. It worked.”

Asked if he meant to send a statement to the division, Anderson addressed comments from last month that caused a bit of conversation, where he spoke about wanting to retire from boxing early.

“I was sending a statement to myself. I fight for myself and my family,” he said. “If people want to hate on me for it, I’m a realist, and I’m going to stay real. I’m going to say what’s on my mind. Y’all can take it how you want, this is a business. This is a sport. I’m just doing my job. Take it how you want, but you can’t force me or want me to be somebody y’all want me to be. I’m gonna be myself and be that until the end.”

Anderson vs Rudenko highlights

Efe Ajagba DQ-4 Zhan Kossobutskiy (0:33)

An absolutely absurd fight, and while the TV mostly focused on Kossobutskiy’s total disinterest in the fight once he got hit to the body, leading him to unleash a staggering amount of low blows that got him docked two points in round three and then disqualified in round four, I think it should be said that both of these guys were guilty here.

Ajagba (18-1, 13 KO) was throwing low, too. In fact, before the final nut-shot that got the DQ called at 0:33 of round four, Ajagba had again gone low, while Joe Tessitore and Tim Bradley were focused on a locker room split screen.

But Ajagba was notably less blatant about it, and he wasn’t really that subtle. Kossobutskiy (19-1, 18 KO) just didn’t want to be there once he got hit a little, and you could see him actively hunting for punches to the yam-bag. It was outrageous. You rarely see some stuff like this. Like, 0.8 on the Golota Scale, without the part where Golota was really quite talented and might have won that fight otherwise.

Anyway, I doubt you see Zhan Kossobutskiy back on ESPN airwaves. He’s 34, he’s got no name value outside of Kazakhstan, and he’d already spent six years playing it very safe as a professional over in Europe. I doubt he cares that much. Didn’t seem to care that much.

Disappointingly, Top Rank have not uploaded any highlights of the truly incredible amount of beanbag punching we saw here.

Prelims Results

• Bruce Carrington UD-8 Angel Contreras (79-73, 79-73, 80-72)
• Jeremiah Milton UD-8 Craig Lewis (79-72, 79-72, 80-72)
• Sona Akale MD-6 Nico Ali Walsh (57-57, 58-56, 58-56): Think that should about do it for the experiment. They’ll bring him back on for a “comeback” bid but the writing is on the wall here. This arguably should have been two straight losses for Walsh. He’s scrappy, he’s not bad to watch at all, but there is just a serious lack of upside here, and they did him no favors with all the hype. The hard reality is that because they pushed his story the way they did, relentlessly, there are going to be people happy he lost. He doesn’t deserve that, but it’s not a forgiving fan base on the whole.
• Abdullah Mason UD-6 Cesar Villarraga (60-54, 60-54, 60-54)
• Ablaikhan Zhussupov TKO-5 Wiston Campos (2:52)
• Charly Suarez UD-10 Yohan Gasquez (97-93, 98-92, 98-92)
• Bakhodir Jalolov TKO-1 Onoriode Ehwarieme (2:06)