Jared Anderson: I’m Over Learning Experience With Fury; Time To Become The Teacher Now

Jared Anderson smiled wide before he answered yet another question about what he learned while sparring against Tyson Fury.

While appreciative of the experience he gained while working with the unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion, Anderson acknowledged that he has grown weary of answering inquiries related to the two training camps he spent helping Fury prepare for his second and third fights against Deontay Wilder. It is time, according to Anderson, to show in the ring that the hard-hitting heavyweight prospect is more teacher than student.

“In all honesty, though, he’s a real good dude,” Anderson said of Fury during a press conference Thursday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I enjoyed my camp [with Fury]. I guess I’m over the learning experience now. It’s time to become the teacher now, I guess. I’m happy he showed me everything he did, but he has said he’s finished with his career.

“So, like I said, it’s time to be the teacher now. And so, I’m on past that chapter and I’m kinda, you know, past people asking it now. So, that’s the only reason I smiled like that.”

Anderson intends to teach Serbian veteran Miljan Rovcanin that he made a mistake by accepting their eight-round fight Saturday night at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tulsa. ESPN will televise the bout between Anderson (11-0, 11 KOs), of Toledo, Ohio, and Rovcanin (24-2, 16 KOs) as the co-feature of a tripleheader scheduled to start at 10:30 p.m. ET.

Caesars Sportsbook lists Anderson as a whopping 60-1 favorite to beat Rovcanin.

Anderson, 22, will fight for the first time in eight months. He’ll end the longest layoff of his career, which was caused by a hand injury that forced him to withdraw from a fight against Germany’s Christian Hammer (27-10, 17 KOs) on the Fury-Dillian Whyte undercard April 23 at Wembley Stadium in London.

Fury, meanwhile, is expected to at least pursue a full heavyweight championship unification fight against Oleksandr Usyk. Bob Arum, Fury’s co-promoter, informed BoxingScene.com this week that his company, Top Rank Inc., is exploring the possibility of putting together the fight between Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs) and Ukraine’s Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO champion.

England’s Fury, 34, announced yet another retirement this month, but the Manchester native is expected to fight again.

ESPN’s three-bout broadcast Saturday night will open with a six-round heavyweight bout in which Richard Torrez (2-0, 2 KOs), a 2021 U.S. Olympian from Tulare, California, will meet Mexico’s Marco Antonio Canedo (4-2, 2 KOs). Puerto Rico’s Jose Pedraza (29-4, 14 KOs) and Ghana’s Richard Commey (30-4, 27 KOs) are scheduled to square off in the main event, a 10-round junior welterweight bout between a pair of former lightweight champions.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.