I think (hope) Andy was taking Arreola lightly and looked ordinary as a result. Assuming that, his shorter combination punches land first before Wilder's big telegraphed and predictable punches. I think once he gets touched and can't get an early KO, Wilder unravels mentally and gets beat.
Having all that fat isn’t gonna benefit any fighter. His body’s just so used to beat a fatass that losing some of it has affected his ability. He needs to lose the weight and adjust to that before he gets back into the he ring. His athleticism would be insane if he was actually in shape
Fascinating match, imo. Completely opposite body types. Both desperate. One guy really good on the outside, the other dangerous at close range. Slightly favor Wilder, but Andy could be trouble for him.
If Wilder takes this fight and wins, we can finally get off his back about selecting terrible opponents besides Fury who he lost to 3 times.
PBC have to make this fight. Pre-Arreola, they may have been thinking that Ruiz is 4 years younger than Wilder and an ex-world champ as well, so it's best to protect him from Wilder so that he can be one of their flagship fighters in the future. However, his performance against a 40 year old, 18 months inactive, coming off a loss Arreola was so dire that they must be tempted to wash their hands of Ruiz. This is a guy with little discipline, a compulsive relationship with food, relatively low power and severe anthropometric limitations: a literal one-hit wonder. Plus Wilder-Ruiz is a big and intriguing fight between two ex-champions, made even sweeter by the fact that Ruiz KO'd Matchroom's AJ and AJ couldn't stop Ruiz over 2 fights, even when grossly out of shape by his standards. If Wilder KO's Ruiz easily while coming off back to back KO defeats, AJ's resume takes a massive hit and unravels. AJ would have got KO'd by the short armed blob who got KO'd for the first time by a shopworn Wilder, who also went life and death with prime Parker in NZ (one of AJ's best wins) who himself went life and death with prime Whyte in Britain (another one of AJ's best wins). AJ loses to Usyk again and has three losses to Wilder's two, suddenly AJ isn't even one of the best three HW's of the era. Smashing Ruiz would also be a good way of putting pressure on Hearn to set up Wilder-AJ and AJ would be even more beatable coming off back to back defeats to Usyk and three defeats in his last five fights.
