The Under Appreciated: John Ruiz

He would destroy Wilder, and Ruiz is in the lower echelon of the worst HW Champs of all time. Wilder ia just the worst.

 

I still remember when I first saw John Ruiz fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mco5uCKOPyI

 

i could never find a **** to give about ruiz. a compulsive clincher with welterweight power. glad he made some money for himself, though.

 

Ruiz is actually a really good guy too. Met him at the HOF lunch-in, definitely soft spoken. Thanked him for setting up all those boxing clubs in his home area which is poor and kinda dilapidated. Obviously he was very modest about it.

 

Ruiz surprised everyone by being around longer than anyone ever expected. He's tougher than people give him credit for. Some of the losses were controversial, too: the two Valuev fights and the first Holyfield.

 

Ruiz was the poster boy for boxing corruption of all sorts. His entire career is basically a fraud. In virtually every fight against decent competition, Ruiz blatantly violated the rules against excessive holding, and without the influence of Don King, he would have been appropriately disqualified in every fight he "won" against decent competition.

Not only this, he shamelessly faked "low blows" in several fights to get crucial point deductions - or in the case of Kirk Johnson, a bogus DQ "win."

Then, there are, as you observe, the several highly debatable decisions he received, such as the bogus draw he should have lost against Holyfield, and most egregiously against Golota, where he got the decision in a fight where he hit the canvas twice and actually landed LESS punches than the guy he supposedly "beat!!!!"

Ruiz is, if anything, overrated - because without King's influence, he would have never been rated in the first place, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to violate the basic rules of boxing with impunity, as he did in every fight he ever had against good fighters.

Ruiz is a disgrace to the sport of boxing, a cheater and a fraud whose bogus career was a classic example of how King's corruption ruined the sport when he was a major influence.

 

What I appreciate the most about Ruiz is that he is no longer active.

 

I was actually a very big fan of his when he was fighting, not because he was exciting because he definitely wasn't , but because he took a little bit of ability combined with extreme determination and far succeeded what a typical fighter can do. If you put his determination and grit into some talented fighters who don't have either of those traits, you would get an exceptional fighter.

I know many people think he got questionable decisions, but if you take a closer look at his record, he lost quite a few questionable decisions as well. I would argue he lost more questionable decisions then he won.