Man, it's great to look up all the annual ratings in the history of the sport. Out of curiosity, I looked at the resumes for Rocky Marciano and John Ruiz (I know, weird combo, must be a Massachusetts thing). Rocky Marciano took down 8 contenders who were in the top 10 around (same year) or at the time of the fight. Maybe a 9th depending on where Lee Savold was. As I said, these ratings were yearly. I could not find monthly. Moore Cockell Charles LaStarza Walcott Matthews Louis Layne Savold* Pretty impressive for a so called "scrub" heavyweight champion who sucked. Also, I really loved this stat. Joe Louis was on an 8 fight winning streak where his last 3 wins were against top 10 guys (Bivins, Brion, Savold) Ruiz was even more interesting. He went 5-8-1 against top 10 guys (losses to Haye, Chagaev, Valuev x 2, Holyfield, Jones, Tua, and Kobozev) Kobozev was the most surprising since he was only 16-0 but was #6 at cruiserweight at the end of 1996. So, in short, Ruiz was 39-1 against guys outside the top 10. Not to shabby. Talk about the ultimate measuring stick for a fighters worth. And that 1 loss to Danell Nicholson was apparently a crappy decision. Just some food for thought. I got all these ratings from a database on BoxRec. It's pretty cool.
Whats impressive about Ruiz, 5-8-1 against top 10, all that shows is he couldn't perform worth a **** against anyone worth a ****.
I was more impressed with the fact he went 39-1 against non-ranked guys. Shows he was a tough journeymen/gate keeper/measuring stick. Also, some of those losses could have been wins aka the Kobozev fight and the first Valuev fight.
