Ruiz sows seeds of destruction and Joshua reaps the benefit

Maybe Anthony Joshua would have always won Saturday night’s rematch. Maybe the taller, fitter man’s physical advantages in height (four inches) and reach (eight inches) would have always been enough when paired with a controlled, disciplined gameplan executed to perfection.

But there’s thinking and there’s knowing. And Andy Ruiz Jr will never know how it might have been different if he had approached the task with the seriousness of purpose it demanded.

Six months after scoring four knockdowns and snatching the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles from Joshua in the most compelling fashion imaginable, Ruiz handed them back on a silver platter in this sand-blown desert city.

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He is going to regret it as long as he lives. You could see it all over his marked-up face as he laboured through a post-fight press conference in the early hours of Sunday morning that ached with pathos and quickly veered into a public confessional.

Ruiz flatly admitted the three months of partying after he defeated Joshua for the belts at Madison Square Garden and the abbreviated training camp that followed were behind Friday’s shocking weigh-in, when he came in 15lb heavier than his June weight, and badly compromised his performance.

He confessed to overconfidence and looking past Joshua, saying three separate times he had not taken the rematch seriously.

He openly apologised to his father and trainer for ignoring their warnings when they tried to set him straight, shedding further light on a camp that we are slowly coming to learn was nothing short of disastrous.

Now Ruiz’s 190-day reign as the unified heavyweight champion will be remembered by many as an aberration as the 30-year-old from south-eastern California takes his place alongside Buster Douglas, Leon Spinks and James J Braddock in the one-and-done club.

You could argue the granite-chinned Ruiz, who walked through Joshua’s best shots like raindrops on Saturday night but landed far too few blows in return, was always going to have to pay a price in closing the distance against his 6ft 6in opponent and that his additional bulk helped redouble the inborn punch resistance he proudly attributes to his Mexican blood.

But a heavyweight coming in heavy is never a good sign. History has proven it almost every time. And Ruiz was no exception.

There will be other big fights and seven-figure paydays, but Ruiz will never have another chance to in effect retire arguably boxing’s biggest global star and silence his own critics in one fell swoop. His repeated calls for a third fight in Saturday’s aftermath to break the tie on this accidental rivalry might sound reasonable, but there is no way Joshua will accommodate his wish, at least not while it matters. Ruiz made at least a dozen references to the prospective rubber match as the sobering reality of his wastefulness set in, but he has been around the business long enough to know that his only real chance to close the book on Joshua was on Saturday night. Guys like Andy Ruiz Jr, neither fit nor fashionable, only get a second bite at the cherry when the favourite sons have no other choice.

It was hard not to feel a bit sorry for Ruiz in the moments before Saturday night’s opening bell at the Diriyah Arena. He was second into the ring and entered with the title belts, as is customary for the holder, but otherwise was a champion in name only: the effective B-side of his own first title defence. He had wanted to run it back in New York or Los Angeles, but now found himself before a hostile crowd in Joshua’s thrall halfway around the world for a purse roughly one-sixth the size of his challenger’s. Eddie Hearn ensured Joshua had every advantage, from the 22ft ring size (up from 18ft in June) to the referee assignment (Luis Pabon, whose well-documented penchant for incessant breaks puts in-fighters like Ruiz at a disadvantage).

Ruiz may not act smart but he is no dummy. He knew the score. But instead of using the swirling doubts as motivation to intensify his efforts, he strolled into camp in September when his trainer wanted him there in July. When he cut corners at the gym, he told himself he would make it up tomorrow. When he binged on pizza, wings and taquitos, he told himself he would eat right tomorrow.

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Ultimately, the tomorrows ran out. And the most gutting part is Ruiz poses such stylistic problems for Joshua that it was almost enough anyway. Forget what the scorecards said. When Joshua cut Ruiz with a right hook in the first, Ruiz cut him right back with a stiff jab in the second. Whenever Joshua chose to engage in the pocket, Ruiz gave worse than he got. Every time Joshua risked a war, trouble or the hint of it arose. He was jumping out of exchanges rather than punching his way out, paying homage in the later rounds to the jab, hold and lean tactics of Wladimir Klitschko. Joshua, as they say, did not want that smoke. He did what he had to do to win.

Yet Ruiz could not deny he was worse off for the extra bulk. He did his best to cut off the ring in response to the lateral movement and stick-and-move approach his team correctly anticipated from Joshua, enjoying his best moments of the night in the fourth and eighth rounds when he seemed to close the angles more aggressively. But his foot speed was a tick slow and he was not moving as fluidly as he did in June, too often letting Joshua pirouette out of harm’s way. He settled for one-two combinations instead of the blinding flurries of four and five punches that left Joshua flummoxed at the Garden. He was able to hurt the Watford man, several times even, but never did the moments of legitimate danger he conjured metastasize into anything approaching a desperate situation.

When you spoke with people in Ruiz’s inner or extended circles during the run-up to this rematch, a common message emerged. Ruiz had never had the money or resources to approach fitness and nutrition properly, but we would now see the overnight millionaire achieve a potential only hinted at before. Every one of them was either lying or being lied to – while Ruiz quietly gave in to his appetites and lay the seeds of Saturday’s self-destruction.

There’s a reason why Joshua is a pitchman for Jaguar LandRover, Beats by Dre and British Airways while Andy Ruiz is out here endorsing candy bars and CBD oil – and frankly it is the reason why people who like Andy Ruiz like Andy Ruiz. While Joshua’s image at times feels manufactured, calculated and focus-grouped within an inch of its life for maximum profit, there’s an unvarnished authenticity and everyman relatability to the Imperial Valley kid where what you see is what you get.

But there’s a time to keep it real and there’s a time when keeping it real goes wrong – and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which one Saturday was.