It is possible that John Ruiz and or his trainer/manager Norman Stone have comprising photos of WBA officials.
It's a major belt whether you like it or not and Ruiz was supposed to fight Valuev for the title now Haye has to do it since he won the title.
Lets us hope that Haye is not overlooking Ruiz. Ruiz has been a spoiler before and given good fighters difficult and frustrating fights.
Ruiz cheated in the one fight he "won" against an old Holyfield - both by holding excessively (as usual) and by faking a low blow to avoid getting counted out. What Ruiz does in the ring disgraces the sport of boxing, and it precisely because he has no real boxing skills that he has to do it.
I agree that he faked the low blow. I remember at the time the Sky pundits called as a stopppage. It was borderline-ish. I've seen worse - particularly the follow up low blow he hit Holyfield with. Ruiz does have power though, he managed to put Holyfield down.
Haye is going to put Ruiz to sleep. The added is weight is to cope with Ruiz when he uses his huggy bear tactics. If you re-watch the Haye-Barratt fight you'll see that Haye was extremely weak in the clinch. Haye and Booth have proven themselves to be shrewd operators. I don't think for one second that he's taking Ruiz lightly when he's a few months away from a potential career high pay check against one of the Klitschko brothers.
Ruiz has never knocked out a fighter above the journeyman/tomato can level, other than fringe contender Fres Oquendo, which was an arguable call with Oquendo on his feet. He doesn't have the power to take advantage of Haye's chief weakness, as this fight will show clearly.
Haye broke a signed contract with Vlad and an implied contract with Vitali. Haye ran from Valouev. Chagaev beat Valouev in the right, Vlad beat Chagaev and won WBA title, but WBA took title away and gave it to Valouev so they could fake a fight with Valouev who has rematch clause and is owned by Don King.
Fragomeni and Mormeck were come foreward fighters able to get in close and land shots. I am little irritated that Ruiz is a come foreward fighter that likes to hit and hold. Acctually John Ruiz is the most underrated HW in the World right now. And he hit hard!!! So a victory over Ruiz would be huge. Ruiz is going to be looking to get lucky imo.