Tag: Andy Ruiz

Andy Ruiz Jr. vs Anthony Joshua II officials set; Luis Pabon will ref

Judges Glenn Feldman, Steve Gray, and Benoit Roussel, will score the Ruiz-Joshua rematch on Dec. 7 in Saudi Arabia.

The referee and judges for the Andy Ruiz Jr.-Anthony Joshua rematch have been announced.

Judges Glenn Feldman (Connecticut), Steve Gray (England) and Benoit Roussel (Quebec) will score the highly anticipated fight on Dec. 7 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Luis Pabon, from Puerto Rico, will serve as the referee.

Both Feldman and Gray have judged one Joshua fight. Feldman was a judge for Joshua’s fight against Eric Molina in 2016 but itt ended in a third-round knockout. Gray scored Joshua’s decision over Joseph Parker in 2018, turning in a 118-110 scorecard in favor of Joshua. Roussel will be scoring a Joshua fight for the first time.

Boxrec.com has no record of Pabon, Feldman, Gray or Roussel working a Ruiz fight.

This will also be Pabon’s first time as an official for a Joshua fight. According to BoxingScene, per contract stipulations, the referee could not come from either the U.K. or the U.S.

 

Andy Ruiz Jr.’s assessment of Anthony Joshua: ‘I’m the more skilled boxer’

Andy Ruiz is confident going into his rematch with Anthony Joshua in part because he believes he is simply the better boxer.

What is Anthony Joshua’s biggest problem going into his rematch with Andy Ruiz Jr.? According to Ruiz, it’s very simple: He’s better than Joshua.

Ruiz put Joshua down four times and stopped him in seven rounds to shock the boxing world and win three of the four major heavyweight title belts in June in New York. They’ll do it again Dec. 7 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia on DAZN.

“He’s going to try to make adjustments,” Ruiz told the U.K.’s Telegraph. “I don’t know if he wants to exchange punches, but I’d love for him to do that because I’m the more skilled boxer. He’ll try to box me round and use his jab. But for how long? How long can he keep me away from hunting him down? That’s what we’ve been working on most of all right now, heading into the fight.

“Fight fans are … going to see a lot of fireworks. If he knocks me down, I’m going to get up and knock him down. I know he’ll try to do the same if I knock him down. The main thing is to stay focused and disciplined.”

Ruiz, who went down himself in the first fight, said he’ll take nothing for granted in the rematch.

“I want to impose myself in this fight,” he said, “but I don’t want to overlook him. He’s still a dangerous fighter. I respect him and all the fighters who risk their lives inside the ring.

“He’s going to have some tricks up his sleeve, and it’s my job to not let that affect me. The main thing is pressure, throw combinations and use my speed. I can’t let him grow balls in there.”

 

Dillian Whyte hopes Anthony Joshua beats Andy Ruiz, wants rematch

Dillian Whyte will be rooting for Anthony Joshua when he takes on Andy Ruiz in a heavyweight title rematch on December 7 in Saudi Arabia.

When Anthony Joshua ducks through the ropes to face Andy Ruiz in their highly anticipated rematch on December 7 in Saudi Arabia (live on DAZN), he will have a former opponent rooting for him at ringside: Dillian Whyte.

“I hope he can improve and move on from what happened in June and win, and I want him to win,” Whyte told Sky Sports in a recent interview. “It’s better for me, it’s better for him, it’s better for British boxing.

“It’s been a long time since British boxing had so many heavyweights at the top.”

Whyte fought Joshua in 2015, buzzing Joshua at one point before getting steamrolled in the seventh round. He will fight Mariusz Wach in a 10-rounder on the Ruiz-Joshua card amid an ongoing PED scandal.

Whyte offered some thoughts on what Joshua needs to do to be victorious in the rematch.

“I just hope that Joshua hasn’t listened to what people have been saying, that he needs to lose weight, that he needs to change this, because when you take too much of that negativity, it can take away from your main strength,” Whyte said. “His main strength is being big and strong and powerful and being in physical condition more than guys he fought before.”

Whyte believes that Joshua needs to refrain from brawling and fight on the outside to be successful.

“What Joshua needs to do is drag the fight,” Whyte said. “Use his feet and his range. Get his jab going and hold him as well. Holding is part of defense as well, it’s not just using your feet all the time. Get his jab going and make it a boring fight and clip him when he’s unaware. … You need to bide your time with some fighters and break them down, give them different looks. I think that’s what he needs to do.”

Asked whether he believes Joshua will win, Whyte demurred.

“It’s heavyweight boxing, man,” he said. “I can’t say he’s going to win. I hope he wins, but you never know. sometimes fighters lose and it makes them stronger. Sometimes fighters lose and it makes them weaker. When I lost, it made me stronger. Other guys it made them weaker. I don’t know.”

Still, for Whyte’s sake, he hopes Joshua will be victorious.

“Everything is just hope at the moment,” he said. “I don’t know where he is in his life. Boxing is a hard, dangerous game. Win, lose or draw, I would still like the rematch. Even if he loses his next 10 fights, I still want the rematch.”

No money? No problem: Bob Arum’s plan to get media to his cards

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants his fights covered by the media, even if it means having to help pay for their hotel and travel fees.

Bob Arum has a remedy of sorts for boxing’s ailing, cash-strapped media: help chip in for their hotel and travel costs.

The founder of Top Rank proposed the idea during a recent episode of the Everlast TalkBox podcast. Case in point is the junior welterweight title fight that Arum is staging in Haikou, China in February between titleholder Jose Ramirez and Viktor Postol.

“What I’m going to say is this is a long way away and the average cost of one of the reporters going to a fight if the fight was in the United Sates, you say, is (about) $200,” Arum said. “So we would charge them $200, pay for the air far, pay for the hotels. I think you gotta charge something. It’s not a good image if you charge them nothing. But if you charge a reasonable small amount, a token amount – like $200, or $250 – I think you’re going to accomplish what you do.”

He went on: “There is not one daily paper in the whole country that has a full time boxing writer. None. So how are we getting the news out on boxing? We’re getting it out basically from websites that can’t afford anything. They don’t have any money. They’re operating on views. So when a writer for one of those writers says I wanna go across country or to China to cover a big fight, the guy who owns the website says, ‘are you crazy, we don’t have any money to send you.’ And that’s bad.”

In other words, Arum would rather help subsidize reporters rather than risk having no coverage at all. Conflicts of interest be damned.

“We have to now realize that accommodations have to be made so that we can get the coverage for the sport that it deserves and the rules on propriety that existed in the ’70s and ’80s until now be no longer relevant,” he said. “Again, if this was 20 years ago, I would have said that’s outrageous, but it’s not 20 years ago, it’s today, it has to be done.”

There’s another world title fight taking place on the other side of the world and for which, Arum expects, there will be limited U.S. coverage.

“Look at this fight in Saudi Arabia (on December 7), (Anthony) Joshua-(Andy) Ruiz. Long way away. Cost a fortune to fly and so forth. Now these guys working for the website, obviously, the website isn’t going to send them … it’s too expensive. So the result is that no one is going to cover the fight in the United States.”

Note: Boxing Junkie does not accept travel subsidies from any outside sources.

Dillian Whyte to fight on Ruiz-Joshua II card in wake of PED scandal

Dillian Whyte will take on Mariusz Wach on the undercard of the Andy Ruiz vs. Anthony Joshua rematch, despite his ongoing drug scandal.

Dillian Whyte has been quieter than a church mouse for the past several months but we’ll hear from him soon.

The British heavyweight contender will take on Mariusz Wach on the undercard of the Andy Ruiz Jr.-Anthony Joshua rematch Dec. 7 in Saudi Arabia, it was confirmed in a release today. The news comes as Whyte has been embroiled in a PED scandal that has seen him disappear recently from the public eye.

Whyte tested positive for a banned substance before his July 20 fight against Oscar Rivas, in which Whyte survived a ninth round knockdown to win a unanimous decision. The test was administered by UK Anti-Doping.

Whyte’s “A” sample reportedly showed small amounts of epimethandienone and hydroxymethandienone, which are metabolites found in the banned substance Dianabol.

It was revealed afterward that the British Board of Boxing Control, as well as Whyte and his promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, had been notified of the results before the fight while Rivas and his team were kept in the dark. Hearn said he couldn’t share his knowledge of the test results because of confidentiality requirements.

The BBBofC reportedly conducted a hearing before the fight, which included UKAD, and Whyte was cleared to participate in the fight against Rivas without Rivas’ knowledge.

Whyte isn’t the only fighter on the card to have failed a drug test. Wach, Alexander Povetkin (who takes on Michael Hunter) and Eric Molina (who faces Filip Hrgovic) also have tested positive for banned substances.

Ruiz-Joshua II will stream on DAZN.

Ruiz-Joshua II: Construction of 15,000-seat arena well underway

The site of the Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz rematch is coming along well, according to Eddie Hearn, who posted updates on his social media.

It appears the biggest rematch of the year will have a home.

When it was announced in September that Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz II would take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, there was just one problem: An actual arena had to be built from scratch.

No biggie, it turns out. Promoter Eddie Hearn shared photos of the near-complete, 15,000-seat outdoor arena on his Instagram, adding, “haters said it wouldn’t be ready.”

Hearn’s decision to stage the fight in Saudi Arabia was not greeted universally with open arms. Many critics pointed out the country’s dreadful human rights record. But the site fee offered Saudi backers, reported to be at least $40 million, was too much to turn down.

Joshua recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and was given a tour of the construction site.

The rematch will stream live on DAZN.

If Anthony Joshua beats Andy Ruiz Jr., ’I want everyone to bow to me’

Anthony Joshua told Sky Sports that he is going to “whoop” Andy Ruiz in their rematch on December 7 in Saudi Arabia.

This much is certain: After the most humiliating experience of his professional boxing career, Anthony Joshua is talking as if his confidence is intact.

The British heavyweight looks to regain his title belts from cherubic Andy Ruiz Jr., the current poster child for the proverbial underdog, on Dec. 7 in Saudi Arabia on DAZN. Ruiz stopped Joshua in the seventh round in June, an achievement that ranks among one of the early century’s most improbable upsets.

That’s all anyone has been able to talk about over the past few months, much to Joshua’s noticeable chagrin.

“I’m gonna whoop him, show (Ruiz) how great I am,” Joshua told Sky Sports in a recent interview. “If they think he’s that great, if I beat him, I want everyone to bow to my feet and tell me how great I am.”

That’s all Joshua used to hear, how great he is. Now? The conversation is about his shaky chin, how he went down to defeat meekly, how he was never as good as hyped, how he must win on Dec. 7 to save his career. Above all, the last few months have been a constant reminder of the prowess of the Mexican-American from the Imperial Valley, flabby waist and all.

That’s a massive shift in the boxing discourse. That’s why Joshua is adamant that when he defeats Ruiz, he wants everyone to kiss his feet.

“I couldn’t beat Andy Ruiz before and get the credit I deserved,” Joshua said. “I wasn’t fighting King Kong was I? … Now apparently I am fighting the quickest hands and the best fighter in the division. Once I beat him, I want everyone to bow to me.” 

Just like they used to do.

Andy Ruiz’s Wilder vs. Ortiz II prediction

Andy Ruiz, who holds multiple pieces of the heavyweight crown, gives his take on the Deontay Wilder-Luis Ortiz rematch Saturday in Las Vegas.

Andy Ruiz, who holds multiple pieces of the heavyweight crown, gives his take on the Deontay Wilder-Luis Ortiz rematch Saturday in Las Vegas.

Oleksandr Usyk could face Derek Chisora next, says manager

Oleksandr Usyk said he wanted to fight for a title after his successful heavyweight debut but might face Derek Chisora first.

Oleksandr Usyk didn’t waste any time. He went from a predictable victory in his heavyweight debut to saying he wanted a shot at a title in his next fight.

Not so fast.

It’s beginning to sound as if Usyk is altering his timetable.

Usyk manager Egis Klimas said the former cruiserweight-turned-heavyweight would be interested in a bout with Derek Chisora. No title there. But Chisora would keep Usyk busy in what would also be a chance to get some more experience at his new weight.

Usyk plans to be Saudi Arabia on December 7 for the Andy Ruiz Jr.-Anthony Joshua rematch on DAZN. Three of the major belts are at stake in that one. The fourth is at stake on November 23 in champion Deontay Wilder’s rematch with Luis Ortiz in Las Vegas on pay-per-view.

“We don’t know what happens on December 7,’’ Klimas told Sky Sports. “But if it is possible to fight in between and not to wait for another six months, I think Chisora will be a good fight for Usyk.”

Usyk, who held all of the cruiserweight belts, is already the mandatory challenger for one of the heavyweight belts held by Ruiz, who upset Joshua on June 1 in New York.

Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn has said that the December 7 winner will probably vacate one of the belts.