It was a good performance in terms of him learning from his mistakes, staying disciplined and showing he could adapt and change it up. But it was hardly inspiring or entertaining. Compared to say Lewis' rematch with Rahman or RJJ's against Griffin. But sometimes getting the win is what is required on a given night.
The performance is overrated from a technical perspective, he made a meal out of a very poor opponent. But there’s another dimension which Joshua’s fans aren’t considering, which is psychological. Especially given Ruiz’s abysmal condition, people expected Joshua to put a beating on Ruiz, to demolish him as payback for suffering the most humiliating defeat of all time in fight 1. But Joshua proved to be an intimidated fighter. None of Joshua’s rivals were concerned watching that display, all must have fancied their chances more than before. Whereas if Joshua had gone in with intent and smashed the 284 lbs blob, they would have at least respected AJ’s mentality and the threat he poses. After the fight he blathered about “the sweet science of our lovely sport”, reinforcing the view that he had gone soft and was terrified of being hit.
I suppose jabbing, moving and avoiding a walrus in the ring for 12 rounds has some value. A truly great performance would have been to get that woefully trained obese fighter outta there.
Sad how Ruiz turned up after the big win. I honestly think he may have had more talent / potential than any other heavyweight contender outside of the obvious top top dogs.
LOL, you had a guy that came in so out of shape he was gassing by rnd 3 and fighting in spurts. Joshua doing just enough to win rnds was not impressive at all
Ruiz came in horribly out of shape and immobile. Had no chance of repeating what he did the first time. Joshua ran away too much...should have knocked him out.
My kid says that about fighters! My 7yr old likes watching boxing with me. She also likes the local Chinese food buffet. She's said multiple times about fat fighters "did that guy come from the buffet?" or "was he training AT the buffet?"
As another poster mentioned above, I've always viewed this as a psychological win for AJ, more than the physical. Of course, he had to carry out the gameplan physically, but it must have been tough for him mentally to go back in against the man who bounced him around the canvas on his US debut - especially from what we know of him today (ie carries mental demons). So I definitely think he deserves credit for that, even if Ruiz did not fulfil his end of the bargain by coming in shape. I also feel AJ could have put much more of a statement on things, been much more dominant, if he was that way inclined. But alas that is not his way and I think we were just learning this at the time. I do think AJ gets too much stick sometimes, perhaps because he is seen as 'too corporate ' or failed to live up to the hype. He's been a decent higher level fighter, but inconsistent. Certainly no ATG but not as bad as he is sometimes portrayed.