NEW YORK – Jerry Forrest came to test Jared Anderson and painfully paid the price Saturday night.

Anderson withstood Forrest’s fast start, bombarded him with punishing punches for most of the first round and stopped the durable veteran heavyweight early in the second round of their heavyweight fight on the Teofimo Lopez-Sandor Martin undercard at Madison Square Garden. Referee David Fields stopped their scheduled 10-round bout 1:34 into the second round, after Anderson’s right hand to the top of Forrest’s head seemed to leave Forrest all but out on his feet.

Anderson has knocked out all 13 of his professional opponents. None of the Toledo, Ohio native’s past five fights have gone beyond the second round.

The 23-year-old Anderson also became just the second fighter to defeat Forrest by knockout. Before Saturday night, Forrest (26-6-2, 20 KOs) hadn’t lost inside the distance since Gerald Washington (then 8-0) knocked him out in the second round of their August 2013 bout in Indio, California.

“Like my corner said, once I get hit it’s a whole different ball game,” Anderson told ESPN’s Bernardo Osuna in the ring. “You know, I switch up everything, really, my mindset, how I fight, everything. I try to come in cool, calm. I see everybody was kinda expecting him to go out early. I didn’t want that. I did wanna get all the way warmed up, but once he did hit me, as y’all see, something flipped. And just all I saw was red, so the 114 punches came [in the first round] and, you know, we picked it up.”

Forrest got Anderson’s attention by landing two left hands from long distances less than 20 seconds into their fight. Forrest connected with another left hand only 25 seconds into the opening round, which made Anderson smile.

Anderson, knowing full well Forrest came to truly test him, responded by unloading a barrage of power punches in a neutral corner that made Fields take a close look at how Forrest was reacting to taking all those punishing punches. Forrest tried to hold Anderson with less than a minute to go in the first round, but Anderson wouldn’t allow it.

Anderson showed incredible endurance for a 239-pound heavyweight by landing 54-of-114 punches in the opening round. Forrest showed a lot of toughness by absorbing so many punches in the opening round, but ultimately couldn’t take the aggressive Anderson’s power.

“You know, [I need] to keep my composure even earlier,” Anderson said. “You know, it shouldn’t take me to get hit for me to be able to do that, you know? but everything was kinda, you know, all right once I started to, you know, adjust myself and get my feet up under me. You know, I have been kinda off for a little second. But I definitely think I came back and made it better.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.