Ruiz is 33 - 1 right now, only loosing to Parker. Galento rarely made it 7 fights in row without loosing. At 34 fights, he lost 6 times, with a draw and another NC. Why does he even get mentioned in a fanatasy match like this? Let me guess, another random n = 1 affair?
Because back then contenders fought more often and had tougher schedules. Today all top 15-20 fighters have less than 5 losses because they don't fight against each other often. Not than Galento is better than Ruiz, but the gap is smaller than the records suggest.
You´re talking about the cab drivers, firemen and barekepper they were fighting? Like fighting 1-2-0 James J Taylor at fight nr. 50, or 5-31-1 Otis Gardner, or 0-5 Jack Marsling well after 28 fights? What about 3-11 Leo Dillon after another 7 fights? Want to compare the win/loose ratio of Two Ton and Ruiz after the middle of their career? Three fights before Louis, Galento fought another 13 - 6 newbie. "They fought more often." <-- Quantitiy over quality, hm? Anyone with eyes and half a brain can easly tell the difference between Ruiz and Galento. Ruiz fights in the tight professional game of today, while Galento fought twenty-x losses fellows random through his career and still lost dozens of times! He dropped and hurt Louis in a total n = 1 affair, a absolute single event happening (beside repeatedly fouling Nova...), the only reason we talk about that fellow. Apart from that surprise, the difference between Ruiz and Galento is that of a 33 -1 professional and a novice boxing showman. You can see his work in another good show, like here: This content is protected
To be honest, more than half of Ruiz fights are also against nobody. Again, I don't say that Galento is better but he fought more good fighters than Ruiz. Baer would destroy Ruiz too, so I don't see your point.
After rewatching that Baer-Galento video, I honestly, din't see much separating Ruiz from Galento. Ruiz is a little more classiically skilled and has faster hands, but, Galento seems to hit just as hard if not harder, and has his own cagey way of landing that big hook of his. And, both Baer and Galento shook off much harder shots in that fight than Joshua did last Saturday.
Galento’s lack of defence, especially on the inside would have him eating leather all night. How are we supposed to believe that a fighter that lived on hot dogs, beer and cigars is going to beat a 110 fight amateur and a virtually unblemished professional career holding 3 of the 4 major belts in today’s climate?
Staggering showcase Galento, who swings like Wilder with half reach and handspeed, 80% of time hanging in the clinch wrestling, looks the same then this fellow? This content is protected Ah it was irony, right? I can tell where that comes from: The longer the history, the higher the chance "boxing historians" find a case to make a fighter look like something.
I am by no means saying that Galento is supremely skilled. He clearly is not. But, I am just not seeing amazing skills, power, or speed out of Ruiz, either. Ruiz has good boxing basics, and better handspeed than you would expect for someone who is roughly 60-80 pounds overweight. But, make no mistake, the result last Saturday was far more about Joshua's limitations than it was about Ruiz's skills. For Christ's sake, Ruiz landed an average of less than 9 punches per round. This was absolutely nothing like Douglas-Tyson where the underdog fought a brilliant fight. It was more like Tyson-McBride where one fighter just didn't want to be in the ring anymore when the other man did not fall down after the first onslaught.
I see that too, AJ just messed it up. Compliance here. But it needs a solid fighter to pull it off either. And thats the difference between Ruiz and Galento. Galento is the problem here. "but he fought more good fighters than Ruiz." is just way out of proportion. Galento had marginal success (with Louis) among tons of losses and tons of amateur like fighters. Ruiz cought AJ on a bad night, but managed to finish the job AND is successful in his devision, losing one time in 34 fights against a very formidable fighter in Parker. There is just no basis to put Galento in the ring with Tuas, Ibeabuchis, now Ruiz and so on. These are top notch fighters who just lost to the best of the best of the best. Galento was a wrestler and one trick pony in professional boxing. Another case might be made with AJ (and others): The believe that boxers peak after they reach the age of 30. We might very well have seen the best AJ, the best Fury and the best Wilder.
My honest opinion is why would anyone pick Galento? Whatever the flaws one thinks he sees in Ruiz's technique, he is a decently grounded fighter. Galento looks a tough man amateur. No defense at all to speak of. In fairness to Galento, he must have been really tough to even make it to big fights with the best around in his day. Ruiz looks to me much faster with his hands, much more skilled--I would expect him to jab the stubby Galento silly. Galento didn't have Joshua's reach to worry about. Certainly the two films shown are a good argument that heavyweight boxing has improved a great deal over the decades. This fight would be unique in one regard. This would be the only fight in which Galento would be the thin man.
Lou Nova was a fine heavyweight. Ray Arcel once said Lou would have given any heavyweight in history a lot of trouble. The film of Tony Galento beating Lou Nova is not available but the audio of the radio commentary was on YouTube ...and it sounded like an outright legit win of Andy Ruiz vs Joshua proportions. This was an important outdoor fight at the time. Galento beat a fighter at least as good as Andy Ruiz. Here is film of Nova against Baer to give an idea of how good of a fighter Galento beat. This content is protected
They would pick Galento because he fought 80 years ago, stung Joe Louis, exposed the hyped-up Lou Nova, and had a fighting heart. In the mind of many classic boxing romanticists, that's more than enough to overcome the speed, size, skill, and power (imo) disadvantages.
Lou Nova was very good techincal fighter with strong punch, good defense and solid chin. You can see it in both Baer fights. He was probably better than Ruiz yet Galento beat him. Nova was definitely better fighter than Tony, but sometimes much better fighters lose to better ones. People now laugh off Joshua, but he can destroy Ruiz in rematch and then nobody will tell us that Ruiz is great fighter who can beat anybody in the world. Maybe he's better than what he showed, but so far I don't see why people feel it's insult to make h2h threads about him vs Galento. I think he would beat Tony as he wasn't that special but it's not unreasonable to see possibility of an upset. Ruiz is not Joe Louis or Mike Tyson.
To be fair with Ruiz, his career is not over, so any real comparison can only go on where he is now. Right now, he can fight. He has won a great fight against an elite opponent regarded as the dominant champion of this age - and got off the floor to do it. It is a better win for Ruiz than the win Joshua had over a Klitschko. So the guy actually deserves as much respect, if not more, than the respect AJ was awarded for beating Klitschko. However, there is no harm in making the comparison between Ruiz after his best win against Joshua and Galento after his best win over Lou Nova. Both Ruiz and Galento are far better fighters than given credit for.