Andy Ruiz has become criminally underrated

He wouldn't have beat Joshua without being obese. Ease of underestimation and potential for humiliation are a huge part of why Ruiz was so dangerous prior to Joshua 1. And had he been "in shape" at say 210 lbs, Ruiz wouldn't have had the strength, durability or heavy-handedness he did at 270 lbs, which are essential for a front-foot fighter.

 

Wlad landed a big shot on Joshua, had him in all sorts of trouble from rounds 5-10 but couldn't finish his dinner. Vitali claimed to have told him not to try to take Joshua out as he didn't need to take any risks and the hurt, gassed Joshua was supposed to be finished anyway. But the bottom line is that Wlad snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, despite having considerably more height, reach, power, footspeed and experience than Ruiz.

So Ruiz deserves a lot of credit for finishing the job: he showed good offensive skills, great handspeed, accuracy, durability, heart, composure. Several of Joshua's better opponents would have probably flunked it in the same situation and they never got in a position to win to begin with. Ruiz was partly in that position because he had a unique capacity to be underestimated and to increase pressure on a narcissistic bodybuilder opponent, owing largely to his looks and physique. Put Tyson from the Douglas fight in with Ruiz from the Joshua fight and there's a very good chance the outcome would be the same. It's hard to replicate it now because fighters don't underestimate him to anything like the same degree. Though Ortiz still underestimated him despite his own war with Martin and seeing Ruiz demolish Joshua and he ended up having 2 KD's scored against him in the 2nd round, which may well have lost him the fight.

Ruiz has done nothing special aside from springing arguably the biggest upset in heavyweight history but look at Joshua's other opponents barring Usyk and Wlad: what have they done that's special? Povetkin was a gold medallist as an amateur and had a special moment as a pro when he got up twice to ice Whyte with one punch in Britain on the cusp of 41 but is that as impressive as Ruiz's win? Whyte, Parker, Franklin and the rest have never done anything special. Very few fighters do anything as special as Ruiz did.

Sure he's avoided certain opponents his whole career but that's intelligent considering his extreme limitations. He needs to fight opponents who lack footspeed or those dumb/limited enough to exchange with him to have a good chance. He knows very well from sparring and the amateurs that anyone with footspeed and a backfoot game is a nightmare for him.

 

"Ruiz is a fat disgusting slob."

Exactly. That's what opponents think too, so they exchange with the little fat man and quickly end up in trouble. Then they realise that they're losing to a little fat man and the pressure increases further.

"AJ is a very flawed fighter. No x, y, z..."

I could levy the same hyperbolic criticisms at Lewis or Wlad to varying degrees and I've never seen Joshua KO'd with one shot. Joshua is one of the six most accomplished heavyweight champions of the last 20 years and athletic standards are higher across the board than they were 50-60 years ago whenever they are measured objectively.

If Joshua is as bad as you say, why does beating him twice mean much more than beating him once? How does Usyk get much credit for winning an 8-4 UD and a 7-5 SD against a post-Ruiz mentally shot, already exposed version of a glass jawed, no heart, no IQ, suspect engine fighter?

 

Usyk would have still been a great cruiserweight if he'd lost to Joshua but his status would be much lower than it is now. He would have been another in a very long line of cruiser champions who failed at or near the top at heavyweight. And after Joshua, Usyk's best heavyweight opponent beaten is Chisora, who was ranked below Ortiz, who was objectively top 10 ranked when Ruiz beat him. If Usyk had lost to Joshua, he would have been seen in a similar class to Haye and possibly lower, seeing as Haye won a title from Valuev and stopped Chisora in 5.

Ruiz is universally ranked in the top 5 or 6 heavyweights in the world, regardless of anyone's individual opinions on H2H. He's also a former unified titlist and the first man to beat Joshua, as well as the only man thus far to stop him. So while dominating and battering Ruiz would not be a legacy-defining win or tell us anything we don't already know, it would be a solid filler win.

 

"At least Usyk didn't get shut out"

So? If AJ sucks with "no x, y or z" as you claim then how does beating him twice make Usyk any good? It just means that Usyk decisioned someone who sucked, which probably means that he couldn't even safely stop someone who sucked. Seeing as Usyk's 1st or 2nd best win is a guy who sucked and the guy who gave him most trouble in a highly competitive war is 2 inches shorter with 3 inches less reach, perhaps Usyk sucks or borderline sucks too. Perhaps every chess player in the world aside from Magnus Carlsen sucks at chess.

 

No, he'd be inferior if he were "in shape". He's been obese since he was a young child so I suspect his body has adapted to being obese. And if you look at James Toney, he could have fought Peter and other heavies at 200 lbs or below, the same weight he was in his cruiser and sub-cruiser days both before and after. Toney is several inches shorter and stubbier than Ruiz but came in similarly obese for his size at 233 lbs. He could have also loaded up on muscle instead of fat but he didn't do this for a variety of reasons.

It's very likely that a key reason why Ruiz has had as much success as he has in his career is because he's obese. A 200 lbs "in shape" Ruiz didn't demolish Joshua, a 268 lbs manboob Ruiz did.