In all of the jubilation at the shock defeat of Britain’s Anthony Joshua by Andy Ruiz, partly driven by the pleasure we all deprive from a sporting upset, and it would seem, elation a fatty triumphed over a superb athlete, it’s taken veteran promotor Bob Arum to throw some light on the shock.
“Ruiz can’t punch”, Arum, the former manager of Ruiz, declared and he’s 100% right. Of course all heavyweights can whack a bit, after all they’re heavyweights but Ruiz does not have the punching power to upset the likes of Joshua, who although no iron-jawed boxer as we know, would never normally be troubled by the Mexican-American.
That’s not to belittle Andy as he does have an excellent chin, sound defence and fast hands but you need to bring a lot more to the table than those attributes to beat the top echelon.
I’ve replayed the bout several times and am convinced the Brit’ was nobbled. He went through the motions almost robotically in the first two rounds, his eyes had a dreamy unfocussed look and he lacked an intensity or energy. It simply didn’t add up.
It’s too late now but a blood test right after the bout might have been revealing.
2 Comments
I saw the same thing Bob. His fate was sealed from the get go.
Well… everyone has a right to their opinion… but, although you will doubtlessly regard yourself as having superior knowledge on all things boxing when compared to someone such as myself who freely admits to having pretty much no real knowledge at all when it comes to the art of pugilism… aren’t you the same Mr Jones who predicted that Cameron would triumph over Tua? How wrong could you me? I, on the other hand simply saw it as a common sense foregone conclusion that there wouldn’t be a hope in hell for the unproven Cameron against someone who had gone the full distance against Lennox Lewis. It’s not rocket science Bob… it’s really not.