John Ruiz vs Luis Ortiz

Yes, like I said... even far removed from his prime, not winning any major bout for years, he could have won that by DQ if it had taken place outside of the UK.

Can you imagine the fallout if Ruiz had won his 3rd WBA belt that night?!

 

That is true and perhaps a forgotten point.

Some of those later fights especially.

 

Exactly and no one wants to admit that

I saw the Kobozev and Nicholson fights, they were very, very close. You could argue all but 3 of his losses were toss ups. Only Tua, Jones and Haye beat him convincingly.

 

Wait the majority are picking Ruiz to win? Dude was absolute garbage. I can name 10 fighters from now who will decimate him. It's joke that people are picking Ruiz to beat Ortiz.

 

But Wilder beat Ortiz and these people dislike Wilder.

 

If the fight goes past round 5, Ruiz picks him apart.

 

Ruiz wasn't garbage at all. He was a very ugly and frustrating looking fighter to watch, but he had real skills and knew how to use them. He specialised in negating other fighters' strengths, and disrupting their rhythm with his step in jab and clinch fighting, where he would constantly wrestle and wrench fighters about while digging in sneaky uppercuts and bodyshots and driving them back to the ropes. Extremely draining and frustrating, and I don't see what Ortiz does to counter it. He was also good at varying his shots, sometimes lunging in with his stiff jab, sometimes stepping in with a sneaky short left hook, sometimes coming over with the straight right, sometimes feinting to draw a counter then letting them fall into a clinch themselves.

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Holyfield, a much better and more proven fighter than Ortiz, had horrendous problems with Ruiz all three times they fought. Chagaev and Valuev had problems as well. Kirk Johnson had to resort to fouling due to how frustrated he got trying to deal with Ruiz's wrestling. Ortiz had issues dealing with Jennings's in-fighting, and Jennings wasn't even utilising a clinch but just falling in and trying to duke with Ortiz in close. What's telling about that, and what makes me pick Ruiz, is how passively Ortiz let Jennings close distance. He does that with Ruiz and the fight's as good as lost. Also look how open he is to Jennings's lunging lead right hand, a Ruiz specialty.

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I don't totally rule out Ortiz's chances. He would be one of the hardest punchers Ruiz ever fought, and his uppercut would be a potent weapon he could utilise to hurt Ruiz. But this is far from a given, and I just don't see any overwhelming skills or physical attributes that would make me pick Ortiz with any confidence.

 

Ruiz gets pretty underrated due to his style. I'm not saying he'd for sure beat Ortiz, but he should be the favorite here. Much better resume.

 

No, Ruiz was garbage. In fact, worse than that. Not only did he have all the ability of high grade clubfighter, but he used his connections with Don King to get title shot after undeserved title shot, and a free pass for his illegal holding tactics and other shenanigans that should have gotten him disqualified in virtually every fight against decent fighters.

He "won" by breaking the RULES against excessive holding. That's not a "style" or "negating other fighters strengths," it's CHEATING. Not only this, in several fights by blatantly overacting to draw bogus low blow calls to get crucial point deductions (Thunder, Holyfield II) or a bogus DQ (Johnson). His entire career against world class opposition is utterly fraudulent.

And, then, the gift decisions, the worst of which being the Golota fight. Golota should have won that fight, it's one of the worst robberies of the period. Golota outlanded Ruiz, had him on the canvas twice and there was actually a (RARE) point deduction for one of Ruiz's illegal moves. Yet somehow "all the King's judges" gave the nod to Ruiz. Shameful. And yet another example of how a powerful promoter took a mediocre regional fighter and made him an (undeserving) beltholder

Ruiz is exhibit A of how corruption damages boxing, elevating a talentless hack to levels his ability never merited. Without Don King, he's a regional beltholder, at best.

 

Resumes don’t win fights.