Enlighten me on buildup to Roy Jones vs Ruiz

There was no buildup. Ruiz was a third class bum and Jones was terrified of a live body. He saw easy title and took it. Jeez Toney while totally fat did the same thing. There were probably 20 fighters or more ltheavy down to welterweight who beat the bum that night.

 

All it did was expose Ruiz as nothing more than a Scott Ledoux type fighter. Who needed wrestling elbows and headbutts to compete at a high level. Ruiz was a farce created by King in the hopes to draw Puerto Ricans into heavyweight boxing not even they fell for it.

 

That is not true at all. There was plenty of buildup. I agree Ruiz is a bum. But, most experts at the time figured that he was just too big for Roy. Ruiz was a favorite going in. The fight itself was putrid. Even worse than expected. Ruiz gave a truly awful performance.

 

I didn’t look for long and couldn’t find much in the way of pre fight predictions.

I guess these were decent reads

https://www.boxing247.com/news/Jones-Ruiz-Preview.php

https://www.boxing247.com/news/DePierro0103.php

 

This fight was a classic example of all that is wrong with boxing.
No one took this as a serious heavyweight championship fight. I respect Ruiz more than most, but at no point did anyone recognize him as THE heavyweight champion, except for Don King and the WBA. Jones picked the weakest titlist he could to claim that he was heavyweight champ, but the fight was really seen as a sideshow, an interesting test for Roy but not a true championship fight. Roy gave himself so much credit for it, but he would've been killed against Lennox Lewis had they fought.

In my opinion, champs from lighter weight classes should be forced to establish themselves in the higher division by beating someone in the top 10, before fighting for a title.