Why not? Wilder and Ruiz Jnr are around as good as Young could best, that’s what me thinks. I like the “modern” vs classic debates a lot of interesting perspectives surface and none of these guys are anyone’s sacred cows. Keep it civil.
While definitely not sacred, Ruiz is some kind of bovid ungulate…… Jimmy Young could beat these two, he could probably frustrate the hell out of them. He was a very effective negative fighter. He could also lose to them, he was not exactly unbeatable even at his best. Ruiz could outpoint him or possibly even stop him, but he’s so lazy and inconsistent it’s more than likely he follows him around the ring losing round after round. Likely a boring fight. Most times, Young wins. Wilder would have a reasonable chance of stopping Young, I would expect that result about 50% of the time, else a wide points loss. Here’s the thing, I may be completely wrong. H2h is very hard with inconsistent fighters. Wilder at least consistent in heart/will to win, but outside of power largely devoid of boxing ability. Ruiz very talented but has all the gusto of a death row inmate shuffling off to old sparky. Young fought like he wanted to avoid a fight. Hard to pick
Ruiz would land much harder shots and wins a decision, too good in the exchanges. Wilder is hard to tell, Young was excellent against punchers but the only Young opponent thats on the level of Wilder was Foreman, who nearly finished Young in the 7th round despite fighting the least aggressive match of his 70s career. I think Wilder goes 0-10 then randomly bombs Young out of the ring in round 11.