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Mike Coppinger, ESPN
Heavyweight contender Jared Anderson will return on Aug. 26 vs. Andriy Rudenko, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.
The ESPN main event will be Anderson’s second fight in less than 60 days. Earlier that day, Oleksandr Uysk’s unified heavyweight title defense vs. Daniel Dubois in Wroclaw, Poland, will be streamed on ESPN+, sources said.
Anderson, ESPN’s No. 8 heavyweight, scored the biggest win of his career earlier this month with a unanimous decision over former titleholder Charles Martin. The win — against his best opponent to date — was also the toughest outing of Anderson’s career.
Anderson, 23, was stunned on multiple occasions and lost a single round for the first time in his career. Anderson (15-0, 14 KOs) gained valuable experience in the process, however, and he was extended the distance for the first time in his career.
Rudenko (35-6, 21 KOs) is a step back from Martin; the 39-year-old Ukrainian has won four of his past eight bouts. He proved to be durable, though, lasting the distance in defeats to Alexander Povetkin, Zhilei Zhang and Agit Kabayel during that stretch with a sixth-round TKO loss to Vladyslav Sirenko in 2021.
More important than his opposition, Anderson is staying active as he continues to develop into what he and Top Rank hopes is the next great American heavyweight.
Fighting out of Houston, the 6-foot-4, 240-plus pound Anderson was coming off TKO wins over Jerry Forrest and George Arias inside three rounds.