Larry Holmes vs. John Ruiz

I always felt that the fighters who best mastered Ruiz's style were Roy Jones and James Toney. Two fighters who were obliged to rely heavily on technique to get the job done.

Now Holmes in his older years increasingly fell back on his boxing skills and became more studied in their application. He would have worked out the measure of Ruiz a long time before the fight and he would turn up with the plan to beat him.

Ruiz would soon have found his limited skillset neutralised.

 

While I agree with the two fighters you sized up, I also think speed and quickness had a lot to do with that. Jones was Jones from the outside, but Toney is super quick at countering and offsetting any opponents movements in close.
Question for you. How would you compare the Holy that Ruiz beat compared to the Holmes that Holy beat? Both guys still very good technicians, Holy a bit more active and busy. Holmes had a good jab in his old age, but how do you see him offsetting Ruiz, if Holyfield who was coming off two competitive fights with Lennox Lewis couldnt?

 

A good question.

I always thought that Holyfield fell off verry quickly after the Lewis fights so he might well have lost to an older Holmes.

I am particularly impresed by Holmes's performence against Ray Mercer and this in particular makes me think that he could find his way around Ruiz's limitations.

 

Pachilles pick Ruiz.

So Ruiz has 1 mere vote. I am shock.

 

Holmes wins an easy decision, sweeping almost every round. It would be a bad fight, though, because of Ruiz's holding. Holmes would be unfairly criticized by the press after the fight, blamed for not getting Ruiz out of there before the final bell.

 

You should look not so much at WHO he fought, but WHAT happened in those fights. Against Johnson - as he had done in the Jimmy Thunder and second Holyfield fights, Ruiz blatantly overacted to force very questionable "low blow" calls, and ultimately a DQ. Hardly impressive. Against Golota, he was knocked down twice, outlanded, and lost a point for some illegal bs - and yet still got a decision - one of the worst of this decade, imo.

Furthermore, there isn't a fight that Ruiz "won" against world class opposition where he didn't hold excessively - and his connections with King allowed him to get away with. Ruiz is a classic case of a limited fighter who got where he did because his connections allowed him to attain a status his ability didn't merit. Most of these guys would almost certainly beaten him had the rules been properly enforced.

Holmes - even the declined one of the late 90s - would have beaten him in a fair fight, with the rules against excessive holding and Ruiz's other shenanigans enforced.

 

:blood

 

Easton Assasin cruises to a UD by just firing that jab out there and occaisionally dropping in the right hand ...double and triple jabs followed by the right all night long

 

Larry should be able to outbox him but he has to watch out for the awkward right hand combo that got Oquendo

 

Look at how Ruiz so shamefully overacts on several of those borderline shots in the Johnson fight. If you want previous evidence look at the Thunder fight or the second Holyfield fight. Ruiz had a pattern of doing this.

King didn't have any influence?? That's why Ruiz suddenly moved up in the rankings after he signed with him, despite being obliterated by Tua. Without those connections, Ruiz would likely have been no more than a fringe contender. In any event, his rise to mandatory challenger after signing with King is curious, to say the least.

What Ruiz does isn't a "style" - in fact it's not stylish at all. It is cheating, plain and simple. It is one thing to use holding as a SUPPLEMENT to actual boxing, like say, Hopkins or Wlad Klistchko do. It is another thing to use it as a REPLACEMENT for a lack of skills as Ruiz has done. And that he was never once called on it, never once DQ'd - as he should have been several times - leads me to believe, as with his rise in the rankings, that King's influence had something to do with it.

Jabbing is a legal tactic in boxing; excessive holding like Ruiz does is not. In a fight where the rules were properly enforced Holmes would obliterate him. Truthfully, even if Ruiz was allowed to cheat, Holmes would likely still win - although the fans would deprived of seeing the legitimate boxing match they paid to see!!

 

Not another John Ruiz thread.

 

Nah I remember that fight well. He was starting to nail Johnson pretty good. Ruiz did do some shady stuff, but Johnson was getting frustrated, and I think Johnson was going to get stopped, he was looking for a way out towards the end and he took it.
I think your overstating Kings strong hold on referees and judges, its just impossible. If he was as bad as you say certainly he couldnt cheat his way to that many wins. He just has an ugly style, and weve seen a lot of undercard fights that bore you to death with excessive clinching and holding, its just Ruiz happens to be a beltholder thats put in main events. His style is garbage, but hes perfected the garbage style to be effective, and really when you think about it, hes a limited guy, with poor skills, so he really cant outbox or outslug too many top heavyweights, so he has to get some credit for being king of the garbage style.

 

Holyfield was about as game in this fight as he was against Lewis.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbXazQX4-Q&feature=related[/ame]


Ruiz was certainly an ugly fighter but he was pretty effective. Behind Lennox and Byrd was one of the more successful heavies of his era. Old man Holmes would be a favorite but Ruiz could drag anyone down.