Ruiz. Arreola fought a good fight that night, but looking back on his career... I would have to pick Ruiz, who has been more consistent. Two talented ****s who never got their **** together at the right time. Arreola preached for years how he was going to loose weight and turn his career around, and a few times it looked like it was happening, but nope. At the age of 40 is when he finally weighed in at a career low and gave us a hell of a performance to boot.
Ruiz clearly had the better career and is the more talented fighter, but he's also even lazier than Arreola, he makes prime Arreola look like Holyfield in terms of discipline and work ethic. I think Arreola despite being well past his prime, extended his career by finally getting himself in half decent shape, which allowed him to be competitive with Ruiz. Not sure prime Arreola does much better because he'd be 10-20lbs heavier.
The only time I saw Arreola kick it up a notch, was the Stiverne rematch. This content is protected But even then it wasn´t enough as he ended up trading his defense for offense. It was a gamble that didn´t pay. I can´t remember him ever being that aggressive. So he wouldn´t just have gone to war with Ruiz and taken the W that way. Arreola always was a bit disciplined in his approach, which is ironic considering his work ethic, or lack of there of. TLDR; I agree.
I remember going to the Arreola-Adamek fight and people were passing out flyers about Andy Ruiz, and i thought he was never going to go that far but he surprised the hell out of me. Prime Arreola beats him though, so i gotta stick with my OG Fat boy. Ruiz had the better career imo.
Ruiz had faster hands and that would trouble Arreola, who was susceptible to counters. When they actually fought Arreola caught a very unmotivated Ruiz cold, but after that Ruiz easily outboxed him. Both are underachievers, but only Ruiz has the ability to step it up and beat a legitimate top 5 fighter. Arreola got steamrolled by Vitali, Wilder and would have by the 2019 Joshua, too. I will say that I can't recall many fighters ever having as much fun in a match as Arreola did when he knocked out Seth Mitchell. lol..... This content is protected
I'm picturing a bunch of fat guys dressed like Hare Krishnas passing out flyers like "Have you heard the good news?"
"Have you heard the good news?" Me: Whats that? "Andy Ruiz will be the first mexican heavyweight champion of the world!" Me: yeah right GTFOH loser!
It was funny seeing ruiz lose all that weight and "take boxing seriously" only to just barely beat a washed up arreola . Not a good look.