What exactly did Ruiz do to earn a fight with Lewis?

It's crazy because if he had been in the same shape he had been in for Tony Tubbs, he would have stood a decent chance to repeat what McCall had just done to Lewis.
Butler was about 30 or 40 pounds overweight for Lewis.

For a fighter who started out as a safe opponent for debuting and novice prospects, he had some pretty good success for a while. Shame he didn't make the most of it.
He was never more than a crude banger though.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXmVBH_b3ac[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu-34dcVBhM&feature=related[/ame]

 

Butler could punch but thats about it. Lewis would have killed whether he was ripped or not.

 

Probably. And almost definitely.
But McCall couldn't do more than punch and take a punch, and he somehow managed to make short work of Lennox.

 

ruiz got his position in the wba because he's a don king fighter. don king has had a hold on the wba heavyweight title for years and years. even when lennox unified the tiltes vs evander, king put a clause in the contract that lewis had to fight the wba #1 contender first or he would be stripped. ruiz was #1 ranked by the wba. the case went to court and king won. lennox went on to fight michael grant and was stripped of the title. then ruiz fought holyfield for the vacant title, both don king fighters. even now, king has a piece of david haye while he holds the title.

with this said, ruiz, i believe is one of the most overachieving fighters in history. his resume is pretty good despite his lack of skill.

 

I think Mcall is 100 times better than Butler and thats not saying much for Mcall. Butler threw wide punches and was short and stocky. The shot Mcall hit Lewis was as a well times straight right hand, even though Mcall had his eyes closed. :yep

 

The punch Butler landed on Tubbs was pretty good too.
McCall wasn't 100 times better than anyone.

 

Yeah but look how close Tubbs was to Butler who threw a wide hook. That wouldnt work on even the wide open version of Lewis.

 

Assuming we're talking about the lead up to the 1st Holyfield fight, it wasn't based on Ruiz' quality of opposition. He held defended the NABA title (yeah I looked on boxrec) and that earned him his ranking because it's a title created by the WBA.

@quarry: Those guys had glossy records, but none were ranked or highly regarded fighters...so Ruiz wasn't thought of as top 10 at the time.

 

He sign with King.

 

Wait a minute, wasn't that Rock Newman and Riddick Bowe's main reason for dumping the WBC too ?

 

No, Newman and Bowe's feud with the WBC went back some time before that.
And the WBC was pushing Don King fighters, that's why Bowe and Holyfield (who they'd been trying to strip for some time too) had to pledge that they fight the winner of Ruddock-Lewis ...... Ruddock was signed with Don King, Lewis was NOT expected to win.
Newman and Bowe were looking to get away from the WBC firstly because the WBC were trying to squeeze Don King on them.
Then when the WBC wanted to declare Lewis champion, they did so with the condition that Lewis must sign to fight Tony Tucker - a Don King fighter.

And Lewis complained for years that he had to deal with Don King too much.

 

They made a couple of offers.
To be fair to Lewis, I think he would have taken the low one but his manager didn't like that. And Maloney admits the other offer was good but he felt obliged to stick with the WBC.
There's too much politics involved to put the blame on any camp in particular.