Your opinions on John Ruiz

Trash fighter who relied on an egregious level of fouling and corruption to "win" fights.

 

Well he does fight a bit like prime Jack Johnson.
Jack Johnson Tribute and Fight Highlights In Color - YouTube

 

I still think he should have lost to Golota and Rahman. The fight with the Pole was close, but the latter was nearly a shutout, in my opinion. I don't think he'd find his way into a top ten in a young heavyweight division, regardless of the era. He's a pick-up-the-slack kind of guy.

 

But of course, there's seldom any era where old lions don't linger for a time, so the opportunity to pick them off will always be there for him, much like how it transpired in his time.

 

John Ruiz should have been disqualified each time he was using his trademark fighting style in a boxing ring.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Never really liked watching him really, Steve. Had a negative style but it did bring a fair bit of success so what works for one!

 

Exactly. Ruiz was terrible. In fact, worse than that. Not only did he have all the ability of high grade clubfighter, but he used his connections with Don King to get title shot after undeserved title shot, and a free pass for his illegal holding tactics and other shenanigans that should have gotten him disqualified in virtually every fight against decent fighters. He "won" by breaking the RULES against excessive holding.

Not only this, in several fights by blatantly overacting to draw bogus low blow calls to get crucial point deductions (Thunder, Holyfield II) or a bogus DQ (Johnson). His entire career against world class opposition is utterly fraudulent.

And, then, the gift decisions, the worst of which being the Golota fight. Golota should have won that fight, it's one of the worst robberies of the period. Golota outlanded Ruiz, had him on the canvas twice and there was actually a (RARE) point deduction for one of Ruiz's illegal moves. Yet somehow "all the King's judges" gave the nod to Ruiz. Shameful. And yet another example of how a powerful promoter took a mediocre regional fighter and made him an (undeserving) beltholder

Ruiz is exhibit A of how corruption damages boxing, elevating a talentless hack to levels his ability never merited. Without Don King, he's a regional beltholder, at best.

 

In fairness, he beat more contenders over 12 than Foreman could dream of.

 

His style was old school.

 

I seriously doubt the John Ruiz's fighting style was old school. Do you think that old-time promoters and matchmakers would have someone like Ruiz fighting on their boxing cards? Would old-time fans go out of their way and pay to see someone like Ruiz in action? Would old-time referees tolerate someone with Ruiz's fighting style? Someone like John Ruiz would have a great deal of trouble getting bouts or making a decent living in boxing.

- Chuck Johnston

 

More holding may have been tolerated in early boxing, but not to the outrageous - and rule-violating - extent which Ruiz practiced it, and which his connections to King allowed him to get away with.

Furthermore, as you note, old school boxing fans would have understood that this fraud had all the talent of your typical clubfighter, and would have justifiably been outraged at his in-ring shenanigans, particularly the ham acting he did repeated to get "low blow" calls. A guy like this would have been spit on by old school boxing fans, and justifiably so.

 

Grappling was a part of the game back then.

 

Yeah, Foreman could only dream of such achievements as outscoring McCline and barely beating post-prime versions of Holyfield and Golota on points

 

He lost to Holyfield and never made an effort to fight Golota.

 

Yeah, because the version of Holyfield he faced was the same as the version Ruiz faced.