Moorer convincingly. Ruiz doesn't have the tools to beat Moorer. If Moore is in good shape and mentally there I'd definitely favor him by stoppage.
Moorer wins this, easily. Most likely by KO Ruiz was terrible. 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. If the rules were properly enforced against him, he looses to ANY world class fighter and probably quite a few second-tier guys as well But the chicanery that enabled Ruiz to "win" fights against ranked opponents was not limited just to blatant transgression of the rules of this sport. 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.
I like Moorerbin this fight but will say this about Ruiz, he found a way to win and didn't care what he looked like in the process. With that said, I like prime Moorer's combination punching and strong right hand jab to keep Ruiz outside and from his mugging, grabbing style.
I don’t remember Ruiz fighting southpaws. I imagine he’d be pretty easy to line up. If not, he’d turn a fight with Moorer into the worst fight in history.
John Ruiz from August 2000 to April 2004: 1-1-1 with Holyfield, knocked Holyfield down in fight 2 Beat undefeated Kirk Johnson in 10 by DQ 12 round decision loss to Jones 12 round decision win over Rahman 11th round TKO win over Oquendo 4-2-1, no knockdowns or knockouts suffered Prior to that Ruiz had put together an 11 win streak since getting wiped out in 19 seconds by Tua in March 1996 for his 3rd loss in 28 fights. Moorer probably outpoints him in a close fight but his blown-up LHW chin was a serious liability: dropped by 17-12-1 Martin, twice by Cooper, once by Holyfield 1, KO'd by 45 year old Foreman, down five times and stopped against Holyfield 2. Dropped ten times in a fourteen fight stretch.
Toss a coin. Moorer gets massively overrated on here for the Holyfield win, but that was the ultimate lightening in a bottle victory due to Holy having a heart attack and organ failure. The more accurate representation is the guy who went life and death with Bert Cooper, lost to a 45 year old man, lost to Eliseo Castillo, and, much like Ruiz himself, lost to Tua in 1. He just wasn't that good.
