Why Did Razor Ruddock Brawl with Tyson?

The Boncrusher and Dokes fights turned Ruddock from a decent boxer with good power, to a lazy one punch knockout artist. His 'smash' was an awesome weapon and no one can deny his bravery in the two Tyson bouts; but had we seen some of the earlier boxing skills complementing the power Ruddock would of been an even harder challenge for Tyson, and might have even won the first bout.

 

Tyson did dish out more of an ass whooping on Razor Ruddock than he did on anyone else, ever.

So its not surprising that Ruddock was pretty much done after those fights.

Tyson did say to Ruddock after the second fight, if Ruddock keeps his head screwed on he could become champion one day.

There was a lot of hatred between both guys, Tyson felt Ruddock was a fake, a phony pretending to be a bad ass and Ruddock felt Tyson had been ducking him '89.

Ruddock tried to 'out-Tyson' Tyson and he failed. He could have/should have used his size advantage but didnt and instead tried to brawl with a brawler.

 

Ruddock fell in love with his power.

Like a home run hitter who always swings for the fences he didn`t want to do the hardwork to set up his shots. The jab and right hand were non existent and Tyson was able to keep Ruddock off balance.

He was hoping to get lucky with a perfect shot but even when he did land a bigh left Tyson took them though he was wobbled a few times.

 

The early influence of George Chuvalo,who was his mentor in the early to mid stage in Razor's career had a lot of bearing,I believe.
George always thought of Razor as a brawler as opposed to a gifted boxer.

 

Didnt know Chuvalo was involved with Ruddock?

Would have been great to see Razor Ruddock (Chuvalo in his corner) vs Bert Cooper (Frazier in his corner)

 

Theres probably a very very very short list of punchers who DIDNT fall in love with their power

You cant blame them though, when you've knocked out 20-30 guys with just power alone, i guess its probably easy to fall into that pit and rely purely on power.

 

Probably because that's the only way he knows how to fight, he's as predictable as the day is long, if the guy would have hired a trainer worth a damn to teach him some boxing skills he might have had a better career.....

He tried to brawl with Morrison too, and ended up getting an ass whipping....

 

Two reasons, The Dokes fight, in particular, got him thinking he was Godzilla. The other reason is he actually thought Tyson was afraid of him because he'd pulled out of a November '89 defense citing pleurisy, so he was very confident.

Whatever Ruddock did or didn't do though, they were two brutal fights & both guys took some severe punishment.

 

There's some clips on youtube, where Ruddock said to Tyson 'You've already been knocked out by a lesser opponent'. To me that suggests Ruddock thought he was better than Douglas

Also Murad Muhammed (Ruddocks trainer/promoter?) said the plan against Tyson was to catch him with something big coming in and then go all out on him once he's been stunned

 

Oh yeah Ruddock was very confident he was going to win, & despite the iffy strategy he fought that way from the first bell. He repeatedly nailed Tyson with shots that had left others unconscious. Great fights!

 

Ruddock was pure boxer in his early career and Patterson tried and then quit when he couldn't get him to revert to boxing, if he had got the mix right, we would have an ATG on our hands, but intellegence, mental strengh and discipline are part of the package.

 

To me, Tyson in those fights showed the attributes necessary for regaining his crown from Holyfield.

Ah well, **** happens :verysad

 

Being a pure boxer may or may not have helped him to go further, and even if it had, I think the assumption that he would have been an "ATG" is stretching things. He was a good fighter boxer or puncher. But a lot of his earlier showings fighting with more of a boxer style weren't exactly stellar. The Smash left uppercut was the signature punch that made him who he is, and had he opted to box more, he wouldn't have been in a position to execute that punch as often or as effectively. He also had the right set of physical tools to be a puncher. As a technician he may have avoided getting hit a bit more, but the man wasn't cut out to be another Holmes or Ali in my eyes.