I'm so glad that AJ...

Yes, he spoke about it post-fight, be gained weight and it was intentional.

 

He felt it was going in - his strategy was to gather greater weight "for strength" because "Joshua is a big guy." So it was a considered strategy by his team.

Cultivating the fat is now pretty much a strategy for smaller heavyweights, it's a thing loads of them do and have done. This might be the greatest success for such strategy though.

 

Some of the agility training he does is insane. Tunney would have approved of the backwards running for sure.

 

What is your explanation for a generation of trainers adding it then.

Look, Ruiz proved last night, as you've agreed, that he was fitter for boxing than AJ. In terms of gastank, he's superior. So his conditioning is in place (there's footage of his training and it is impressive). Once his conditioning is in place there are a number of choices. He can a) add muscles. Muscles is worse for the engine than fat. That is because fat, as you say, is dead weight. Muscle draws oxygen straight from the blood. He can b) lose weight. Losing weight is beneficial because it's poundage that doesn't have to be moved around the ring. It will translate into punches thrown with form and steps taken with balance, literally. So the sum he and his trainers are doing is, is the additional poundage of greater or lesser benefit than the extra steps and punches? And then they marry that up to a fight plan.

The response of Ruiz and his people was that in taking ring centre and trying to dominate inside, the extra weight was worth the trade-off.

You disagree. But it has been borne out by his victory to some degree.

One thing I will say though. Monzon, one of the greatest 15 round fighters in history, smoked 50 a day. I'm absolutely satisfied that this is far, far worse than Ruiz's extra weight. Johnson, one of the greatest distance fighters ever to have drawn breath at HW, denied himself water in the run up to a fight. He dried out. That's way, way worse than carrying fat.

But you can't see smoking in the ring. And you can't see dehydration in the corner. But you can see fat. So people react to it.

But it's crazy, and it's bull****. Out of overweight and cocaine addiction (Leonard), booze (Sullivan), smokes (Mayorga), women (all of them ) i'm happy that being overweight is the least damaging (only joking about the women) i'm absolutely content that fat is the least damaging. And yes, including obese, because that would have to be measured against a 100 a day habit or literally being blazing in the ring.

So fat IS dead weight - less damaging to the gastank than muscle which is actually a drain on the tank. Ruiz has plenty of that too of course.

 

Right, right, "the laws of physics" as John Garfield would have put it. His flesh is absorbing energy.

"We added weight. I wanted to be stronger. Joshua is a big guy."