Jared Anderson was in trouble with the law, not with his opponent.
The heavyweight contender proved the latter again on Saturday night in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he defeated Ryad Merhy by a near deadlock decision in a 10-round bout on ESPN.
The scores are 100-90, 100-90 and 99-91 respectively.
Anderson (17-0, 15 KOs) has been arrested twice since his last fight, for improper gun handling – which earned him a suspended sentence – and then on a high-speed police chase . He is due to appear in court on the second charge on Monday.
However, the legal troubles do not appear to have affected his performance at American Bank Center.
The 24-year-old from Toledo, Ohio, dominated the fight from the opening bell, fighting behind his long jab, throwing punches with enough power to win round after round and generally beat their Belgian opponents.
Of course, Anderson didn’t encounter much resistance. Merhy, a former cruiserweight contender but a head shorter than Anderson, is hardly a risk. He fights to survive, not to win.
That made it difficult for Anderson to score a knockout and made for a dull, one-sided fight that had the crowd booing at some points.
So the scoring was no surprise, although judge David Sutherland will have to explain how he came up with a round to award to Merhy.
CompuBox’s statistics tell a sad story. Anderson connected on 128 of 662 punches thrown, Merhi only 34 of 144. Mehry’s punch total was the third-fewest in a 10-round fight in CompuBox history. In other words, the 31-year-old Ivory Coast tennis player barely appeared.
However, Anderson is one step closer towards his first title.
“I want to give the fans a better show, but what can you do when they show up and fight like him?” Anderson said. “Just another day at the office. We will continue to work.
“I maintained my form for 10 rounds. That’s the biggest thing. I have to make some changes. I made some mistakes. I got hit with a few punches. I shouldn’t have been beaten because he didn’t even come here to fight.”
Anderson and other top heavyweights will have to look at the Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk fight on May 18 and how a rematch might play out.
However, Anderson, who is exceptionally young for a top heavyweight, will still be in a strong position to take on other top big men and eventually be in contention for major belts if he continues to win .
“I want all the names,” he said. “If I am ranked with you and your name is close to mine then we can achieve success. We came to knock people out.”
In the preliminary bouts, heavyweight Efe Ajagba (20-1, 14 KOs) defeated Guido Vianello (12-2-1, 10 KOs) by split decision in a back-and-forth 10-round fight.
One judge scored it for Vianello, 96-94, but the other two judges gave Ajagba the win by the same score.
And 130-pound contender Robson Conceicao (18-2-1, 9 KOs) of Brazil defeated Jose Ivan Guardado Ortiz (15-2-1, 5 KOs) of Mexico by knockout in the seventh round.
Conceicao hurt Ortiz with a left to the body, causing the Mexican to collapse. He followed up with a suplex that knocked Ortiz down again, causing the referee to stop the fight.
The official overtime time is 2:27 of round 7.
