unbeaten heavyweight contender Jared Anderson is scheduled to face journeyman Andriy Rudenko saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
JARED ANDERSON (15-0, 14 KOs)
VS. ANDRIY RUDENKO (35-6, 21 KOs)
- Date: Saturday, Aug. 26
- Time: 10:30 p.m. ET / 7:30 p.m. PT (main event later in show)
- Where: Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tulsa, Oklahoma
- TV/Stream: ESPN, ESPN+
- Division: Heavyweight (no limit)
- At stake: No major titles
- Odds: Anderson 20-1 favorite (average of multiple outlets)
- Pound-for-pound: None
- Also on the card: Efe Ajagba vs. Zhan Kossobutskiy
- Prediction: Anderson KO 5
- Background: Anderson is one of the fastest rising heavyweights in the world. The 23-year-old from Toledo, Ohio, has taken out all but his most-recent opponent, veteran Charles Martin, who survived 10 rounds with Anderson but lost a near-shutout decision this past July. Anderson is ranked by all four major sanctioning bodies, No. 5 by the WBO. That means that an opportunity to fight for a major title is on the horizon if he continues to win. Rudenko probably isn’t a serious threat to Anderson. The 39-year-old Ukrainian journeyman has demonstrated toughness, going to the distance with Alexander Povetkin, Agit Kabayel and Zhilei Zhang. However, he lost one-sided decisions in those and other fights and was stopped for the first time against unbeaten countryman Vladyslav Sirenko two fights ago. He rebounded to stop journeyman Bojan Cestic this past January.
