How good was John Ruiz

That's why King was drawn to Ruiz he thought that he would draw Puerto Ricans into heavyweight boxing that plan backfired.

 

He was champ, so he automatically should be in the HOF imo. But even still, he's one of the worst heavyweight champs ever. Alot of corruption, losing to a way past it Holyfield, and getting beat by RJJ at heavyweight lol.

 

C+ fighter

 

he was slick sort of like a heavyweight Greg Haugen. Could eek out wins and was solid enough, but not Hall of Fame or elite..

 

Clearly one of the worst Hevyweight belt holders in history. Would never have been champion without his connections to Don King. Would never have been champion if he ever faced the best fighter around at the time he fought. Absolutely not HOF worthy. Significantly worse than previous short term belt holders like Pinklon Thomas, Greg Page, and Tony Tubbs. (And none of them are likely to make the HOF)

 

Because it was a joke.

 

Ruiz was a big time over achiever. He was able to get some big wins and capture belts during a very weak time period. He got beat by both Jones Jr and Toney at heavyweight which showed how limited he was. Now and days I think he'd be a good fight for guys like Parker and Whyte. Wilder, Joshuu, Ortiz and Fury I think would all be able to clearly beat him.

 

That's Ruiz without the clinching,elbows and butts.

 

Ruiz is not HOF worthy. Ruiz made the best of his God given talents. Prior to Tua, Ruiz was a boxer/puncher, but really didn't have the handspeed for the boxing part, nor enough power to be a puncher. So he learn a style, an ugly style, that worked for him. A jab and grab, the was horrible to watch.. It worked well enough for him to a lot of fights against the contenders of his time.

As one poster wrote, he had determination and belief in himself. He also had a manager, Norman Stone, that never lost belief in him.
They were both hard to watch, but I give them credit for what they achieved.

 

I didn’t particularly enjoy watching him fight. But he had enough skill and durability to hang in there with ranked guys. I can see him being a lower tier contender in the stronger eras and a higher tier contender or fragment belt holder in the weaker ones.

 

Holyfield won that third fight. He lead a bit, but he more let Ruiz come in and get it.. by their third fight Holyfield wasn't worried about any surprises from him.

 

His genius misses the proles. That is obvious.

 

People are too hard on him here. Of course, he wasn't a great champion or anything like that. And his style was ugly to watch. But he was clearly better than the guys like Savarese, Izon, Botha or Grant.

I think Ruiz had pretty good ring IQ that enabled him to get fighters off their rhythm and often make them look worse than they really were (like was the case with Rahman, Oquendo and even Johnson). Of course, he did it largely by spoiling but it is (ugly) part of the game.

Also, I think his power is a bit underrated. He knocked Holyfield down with a right hand, and Evander was really, really hurt then. Lennox Lewis couldn't hurt the same version of Holyfield once in 24 rounds, Tyson couldn't hurt him once in 14 (although it was better version of Commander Vander). He also hurt Oquendo who was pretty durable guy, hurt Johnson, Rahman, arguably legitimately knocked down Valuev in the second round of their rematch, KO'ed old Tucker and demolished Ray Anis the same way Tua did to him. Anis wasn't of course even a fringe contender but he went full 10 rounds with Michael Grant.

No, Ruiz wasn't bad at all. His style was bad though. He was really ugly to watch and I was rooting against him badly in almost every fight. Except of against Valuev who was even more boring to watch and I wanted Valuev to lose after his blatant robbery against Larry Donald.

 

He was right there with Chris Byrd. Too bad they didn't figh each other.

 

I never knew he benefitted from Boxing Corruption, I didn't need to really, as I know it is a Lying Sport. I didn't like him as a Fighter, in the same way I don't like the S-HWs today, because of his subpar performances. I did wonder why he always seemed to be there and get his chances, but I never cared enough to look deeper, because I was already put off by the Lying Sport of B.S oxing, that I just viewed with disdain.

anyway, he was another fighter, I harboured NO ill will or feelings too, but just used to think, when are we ever going to see True Top Fighters fight each other, as it should be.

Oh, and of course with Honest Refs and NO Outside influence!

btw, is he related to Andy?