Teo Lopez edges Sandor Martin while young stars Jared Anderson, Keyshawn Davis and Xander Zayas remain undefeated after a sensational night of action at Madison Square Garden in New York
Sunday 11 December 2022 12:20, UK
Heavyweight contender Jared Anderson destroyed Jerry Forrest in New York after junior welterweight contender Teo Lopez won his eliminator for the WBC crown on Saturday night.
'The Real Big Baby' Anderson (13-0, 13 KOs) retained his 100 per cent knockout ratio by scoring a second-round TKO victory over Jerry Forrest (26-6-2, 20 KOs).
Anderson captured the WBO International and WBC Silver USNBC titles with his dominant victory before challenging British rivals Dillian Whyte and Daniel Dubois.
"Like my corner said, once I get hit it's a whole different ballgame. I switch up everything. My mindset. How I fight. Everything. I try to come in cool and calm," said Anderson.
"I see everybody kind of was expecting him to go out early. I didn't want that. I did want to get all the way warmed up. But once he did hit me, as ya'll see, something flipped, and all I saw was red.
"The 114 punches came and we picked it up.
"I learned to keep my composure even earlier. It shouldn't have to take me to get hit for me to be able to do that. But everything was alright once I started to adjust myself and get my feet up under me. I have been kind of off for a little second, but I definitely think I came back and made it better."
In the headline event, Lopez (18-1, 13 KOs) sealed a hard-earned split decision win over Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (40-3, 13 KOs) in a 10-round final eliminator for the WBC crown.
One judge had the bout 95-94 for Martin, while two others had it 96-93 and 97-92 for Lopez.
The former lightweight king was originally scheduled to fight Jose Pedraza, but a non-Covid-related illness forced the Puerto Rican contender to pull out of the fight. Martin immediately accepted the opportunity on three weeks' notice.
"It's so hard to fight somebody like this when they're running the whole time. Every time this guy committed, I countered and got him every time. He just ran the whole time. It's OK, though. We got a lot to work on. This is not how we perform. But, listen, our dance partner was running the whole time," said Lopez.
"Every time that this man wanted to commit, I was countering him and tagging him. That's why he was running the whole time. I felt great overall. I knew he was tired. He didn't want to commit. He was staying on his back foot and just running around the whole time. But it is what it is. This makes it look good. These guys are going to want to fight me now. More than ever. Now this is great. Now I can actually have a good fight.
"We would love to fight Josh Taylor. We would love to fight Regis Prograis. Or even a rematch with George Kambosos. My whole thing now is just staying focused and staying devoted."
