GOOD
Well done.
Anthony Joshua answered a lot of questions with a brilliant game plan and superb execution Saturday night in Saudi Arabia, thus resurrecting a career that briefly went off the rails and leaving Andy Ruiz Jr. to answer his own questions.
The last time we saw Joshua he was a beaten man, having been stopped and (borrowing a word used by promoter Eddie Hearn) humiliated by Ruiz in June. On Saturday, he owned Ruiz from beginning to end.
Joshua and trainer Rob McCracken should be commended for their game plan – jab, move, stay out of trouble, take back what’s yours. The fact Joshua was 10 pounds lighter this time played into the strategy; he moved like a middleweight. He obviously put in the work. And Joshua showed no signs of a damaged psyche from the first fight. He was focused, confident, determined.
A particularly heavy Ruiz really never had a chance. He lost a near-shutout decision.
Some critics will suggest that Joshua was too careful, although he did throw a number of hard right hands and a few hooks in attempt to hurt Ruiz. They might point to Lennox Lewis, a fellow Briton who did to his two conquerors what they did to him – knocked their asses out.
That’s not a fair assessment. Joshua learned in a way more damaging than Lewis experienced – Lewis was stopped, not beat up – that Ruiz is a dangerous heavyweight. He made adjustments to minimize that danger and win rounds, which is how the fight played out.
It might not have been as exciting as Lewis knocking out Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman but it was just as thorough. Brilliant.
BAD
Again, it’s difficult to find fault in Joshua’s performance. The man dominated an opponent who had dominated him only six months earlier.
One thing was missing, though: It wasn’t much fun to watch. Joshua supporters will minimize the entertainment factor but others will ask with some legitimacy, “Where was the action?” Entertaining fights are the result of risks, genuine attempts to score a knockout, ebbs and flows, all of which were missing on Saturday.
If that’s not important to you, that’s fine. If it is, that’s understandable.
Joshua turned in a fine performance, not an exciting one. He demonstrated that he could come back from extreme adversity, which says a lot about him. He just didn’t make as strong a statement as Lewis, who said with his performances in his rematches with McCall and Rahman that, “I’m going to do to you what you did to me” and then did it.
That’s special stuff. Joshua was impressive, too, only in a less compelling way.
I doubt Joshua has turned into a safety-first boxer long term even though he said in the ring immediately after the fight that he wanted to “show that the sweet science of this lovely sport is about hitting and not getting hit.”
I believe he and McCracken thought – rightly – that he could regain his titles and the clout that goes with them with a deliberate strategy against Ruiz. That’s done. If he had any demons lingering from the first fight, they’re gone.
Going forward, Joshua, one of the biggest punchers in history, probably will be a hybrid. He’ll be more cautious than he was in the past – he never wants to endure the trauma of a brutal loss again – but he’ll fight aggressively enough to score many more knockouts. In other words, more thrills lie ahead.
WORSE
Well, it looks as if Ruiz might be another Buster Douglas.
Douglas is known both as the fighter who upset then-unbeaten Mike Tyson and the one who mailed it in for his first defense, against Evander Holyfield. Douglas came in 14½ pounds heavier for Holyfield than he weighed for Tyson. He was prepared neither physically nor mentally. Thus, he lost his title in three rounds.
Ruiz weighed roughly 15 pounds more than he did in the first fight with Joshua, which suggests he didn’t put in the necessary work beforehand. He was focused on the hoopla that followed his stunning upset of Joshua, not taking the steps necessary to build on his victory. He reportedly starting training camp much later than trainer Manny Robles wanted him to.
I believe the version of Joshua we saw on Saturday probably would’ve beaten even a fit Ruiz. However, the Mexican-American made his task much more difficult by letting his weight get away from him.
As a result, he cheated himself out of an opportunity to take a step toward becoming an enduring champion. And he cheated the fans, who had reason to expect a similar version of the fighter who shocked Joshua at Madison Square Garden.
Of course, Ruiz isn’t finished. He’s only 30. He said after the fight that if he gets a chance to fight Joshua again, “I’ll be in the best shape of my life.” It might be too late for that; there are no guarantees that there will ever be a third meeting.
Ruiz will get more big fights, though. We’ll see whether he learned a lesson from what can only be described as a disaster on Saturday night.
