This was already a lose-lose for three-belt champ Anthony Joshua. Boxing?s ?next big thing? and projected billion-dollar asset was coming to America, upstaged repeatedly by WBC titlist Deontay Wilder and even Tyson Fury in recent weeks/months, facing chubby replacement opponent Andy Ruiz Jr.
If ?AJ? rolled over Ruiz at Madison Square Garden Saturday night, it would be a gigantic ?so what? from hardcore boxing fans. It?s what a guy like Joshua is supposed to do against guys like Ruiz. And to the casual fan, whose attention is drawn to heavyweight boxing for the big fights, it would look like a stud athlete with a chiseled-in-granite physique pummeling someone who looks more like a box boy at Publix than an elite fighter. Again, ?so what.?
However, if Joshua struggled at all with Ruiz, it would make him look ridiculous, like an aircraft carrier being taken to task by a tugboat.
After Joshua hit the canvas the first time in the third round, just seconds after sending Ruiz to the canvas with a big left hook, this was already going to be a horrible evening for the AJ business, regardless of what happened the rest of the way. But things just got more and more horrible after that.
Joshua would go down again in the third. Then, in the seventh, he?d be sent to the canvas two more times, leading to referee Michael Griffin waving off the contest.
Joshua?s absolute lack of heart and soul throughout the evening was shocking. He looked to be an empty vessel with a blank ?why do I have to be here, fighting this guy? look on his face, going through the motions, more like he was booked into some sort of public appearance than a world title fight.
When Ruiz proved to be a live dog, throwing leather and making him pay for letting his hands go, Joshua had nothing.
A performance like this leads to legitimate ?is he done? talk, not because he was bested and beaten?because all fighters, great and not-so-great, eventually lose?but because he had all the ability to turn things around and just couldn?t muster the fire or professional pride to do so.
?This guy did not look like he wanted to be there tonight at Madison Square Garden,? trainer and analyst Teddy Atlas said on ESPN shortly after the massive upset. ?He had no urgency. He just didn?t look interested and he behaved that way all night long.?
Joshua, since stopping Wladimir Klitschko in a war back in April of 2017, has NOT been fighting with much urgency. There was always some excuse, though. Carlos Takam was an awkward late replacement. Joseph Parker was scared and fighting only to survive. Povetkin was skilled and crafty. Joshua would win all of those bouts decisively, but he fought more like someone set on protecting his status than proving his dominance.
And why wouldn?t Joshua feel that way with all the money being tossed at his feet and all the talk about how much more there is to be had in the immediate future. Since the money started rolling in, there?s pretty much been only money talk, very little boxing talk. Saturday, Joshua certainly fought like someone who had spent more time in camp counting stacks of cash and tallying stock projections than working on strategy or cardio.
Joshua Promoter Eddie Hearn responded to the loss with more business talk.
?At least we know who our opponent is for the end of the year,? Hearn told broadcaster DAZN after the fight, referring to the rematch clause in the fight contract. ?It?s going to be a big rematch in the UK?I know he?ll be even hungrier now. Maybe this is what he needs.?
For Ruiz, meanwhile, boxing was always his main focus. Throughout this event and the lead-up to the event, which featured plenty of insults about his roly-poly physique and the impossibility of the task at hand, Ruiz just kept training and believing in himself. Even after being dropped in the third round with a big Joshua left hook?something which would?ve sent many other fighters into prevent defense mode, happy to achieve the moral victory of lasting a full twelve against the heavily-favored champ? the native of Imperial, California got up fighting.
?It just made me stronger, made me want it even more. I just had to knock him down back,? Ruiz said in the post-fight interview, referring to his third-round knockdown. ?Because of the Mexican warrior that I am?I got that Mexican blood in me.?
Ruiz fought smart and hard, proving that, ultimately, boxing is about two men, alone, going to battle and that nothing else really has to matter.
?He got dropped and he behaved like a fighter,? Atlas said on ESPN, pretty much summing things up.
And now Andy Ruiz Jr. is the 3-belt champion of the world, the first heavyweight champ of Mexican descent, and a fine example of what self-belief can do for you.
