Wilder-Ruiz is a comical mismatch

AJ is not a mutual opponent so he's not relevant to this comparison. Only Morales, Liakhovich, Arreola and Ortiz are.

Ruiz was afraid to throw against Ortiz, won a close A-side decision, managed the fight well but took some big bombs and Ortiz still had the energy to finish strong. As much as hypocrites liked to talk about Ortiz's age/wear when Wilder fought him the first time, he was 38 and 30-0 then but he was 43 years old and 35-2 with both defeats coming by brutal KO when he fought Ruiz. No one who watched the fight was under the illusion that Ruiz's stock hadn't fallen relative to Wilder.

 

38 year old, 30-0 Ortiz was down 85-84 on the cards at the time of the 10th round stoppage in the first Wilder fight. Wilder was more patient in the rematch, gave away most of the rounds but as a consequence barely got hit and smoked the 40 year old, 33-1 Ortiz with one punch in 7. When considering the context, both were better performances than Ruiz's close 12 round fight against a much older and more worn Ortiz, as were Wilder's performances against fresher versions of Morales, Liakhovich and Arreola.

Ruiz beating Joshua is all well and good but I don't think it will matter as Wilder has better intangibles than Joshua and won't underestimate Ruiz as Joshua and Ortiz did.

 

"I never said he came close to losing to anybody, I said that he looked poor against low level opposition."

I thought you said he "struggled" as in struggled to win. So he never came close to losing by your own admission against European level opposition but he "looked poor". People have been saying that about the similarly unorthodox Joe Joyce his whole career, yet he's gone far further than his unoberservant detractors ever imagined. Maybe it's your perception that's at fault here: at least Joyce got hit a lot by the likes of a washed up 40 year old Stiverne, Wilder didn't get hit once.

"However, he’s simply not good enough for you to discount anybody."

Hopefully you won't be disingenuous here and claim that Ruiz just had a "bad night" or whatever when Wilder schools and destroys him. I won't be getting my hopes up though.

 

"Which is that a prime AJ win > any version of Ortiz"

Dubious seeing as Joshua was dropped 4x and quit in 7 against Ruiz, whereas a 43 year old 2 KO defeat Ortiz was only legitimately dropped 2x and went 12 rounds, finishing the stronger of the two. At this point nobody believes that the undefeated 38 year old Ortiz who had never been dropped as a pro (rather than 6x) would have lost to Ruiz, yet Joshua did, and in terrible fashion.

Hearn kept Joshua away from Matchroom's Ortiz several months before Wilder fought him. Many believe that Ortiz would have beaten Joshua.

2017 Anthony Joshua vs 2017 Luis Ortiz

Joshua: 6’5.5, 82 inch reach, 250 lbs, 28 years old, boxing since age 18, 4 years as an amateur, controversially won the 2012 Olympics in Britain at SHW, 19-0 (19 inside the distance, 5 in the first round) 4 years as a pro, exclusively fought in Britain and mainly in London, lost 6 rounds and knocked down once as a pro, orthodox.

Ortiz: 6’2, 78 inch reach, 240 lbs, 38 years old, boxing since age 10, at least 10 years on the Cuban national team (training with Cuban amateur greats F. Savon and Solis) won the 2005 Pan American Games in Brazil at HW, 27-0 with 2 NC's (27/29 inside the distance, 8 in the first round) 8 years as a pro, fought in 8 nations and never at home, lost 3 rounds and never knocked down as a pro, southpaw.

Joshua’s performances against Cubans (E. Savon) southpaws (Nistor, Cammarelle, Usyk) and front foot counter punchers (Ruiz) haven’t been good, which strongly suggests that Ortiz would have been a bad stylistic matchup.

"Resumes" don't win fights and assessment of records is highly subjective: which metrics do you consider and how heavily to do weigh them? At this point I imagine that Wilder would be the favourite in a fight against Joshua, many assess the respective records differently from you.

 

"Man this sounds so much like a certain nut I ignore."

You're doing a pretty poor job.