Jared Anderson, the heavyweight contender, is rumored to return rather quickly as fresh off a ten-round main event victory over former heavyweight world champion, Charles Martin - Anderson is looking to return on August 26th against Andriy Rudenko, as first reported by Mike Coppinger of ESPN. The bout will signal a month-and-a-half timeframe between his last fight which was a homecoming in Toledo, Ohio, at the Huntington Center.
In Anderson's last fight, he went to the decision for the first time as a professional and had some difficulties at times with his most challenging opponent to date. That said, Anderson dropped Martin and dominated most of the fight only getting caught on two-to-three occasions which seemed to be what dominated most conversations.
Per Coppinger's report, the bout would occur the same day as IBF, WBA, and WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Uysk making a world title defense against Daniel Dubois in Wroclaw, Poland, which will be telecast on the direct-to-consumer app, ESPN+.
Andriy Rudenko, a 39-year-old Ukrainian, could be viewed as a step back in terms of competition and has won four of his past eight bouts. Most notable is against world-level competitors such as Alexander Povetkin, Zhilei Zhang, and Agit Kabayel, he has lost, but also gone rounds. Rudenko has only been stopped once in his career which was a sixth-round TKO defeat to Vladyslav Sirenko in 2021. Rudenko has since returned to get a win in 2023.
No word on a venue.
