By Scott Gilfoid: It looks like the heavyweight clash between unbeaten Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs) and Andy Ruiz Jr. (29-0, 19 KOs) won’t be taking place on the undercard of the Tyson Fury vs. Wladimir Klitschko card next month on October 29 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK. Hughie’s trainer/father Peter Fury tweeted a message today saying that Ruiz Jr. has pulled out of the card.
Hughie, 21, and Ruiz Jr. were supposed to be fighting in a World Boxing Organization heavyweight eliminator fight. The winner of the contest would have been the WBO mandatory to Tyson Fury. That would have setup a weird potential scenario where Tyson could be looking at defending against Hughie.
“Andy Ruiz junior pulls out of fight October 29th against Hughie Fury. News just in today,” said Peter Fury on his Twitter.
This would have been a winnable fight for Hughie as long as he didn’t get hit early by one of Ruiz’s big shots. If the WBO had ordered Hughie to fight #4 WBO David Haye, #1 Joseph Parker, #2 Wladimir Klitschko, #7 Jarrell Miller, #10 Kubrat Pulev, #14 Erkan Teper, it would have been fun to see what Hughie would have done. Would he have agreed to fight one of those guys or would he have opted not to take part in the WBO heavyweight eliminator? My guess is Hughie wouldn’t have fought any of them, and instead I think he would have gone in the opposite direction.
It’ll be interesting to see if Hughie still winds up on the card. You would have to believe that he’ll still be fighting on the card, because it will give him the chance to be seen by a lot of boxing fans. However, with the fight date only a month away, it’s not probable that a good opponent will be found for the 6’6” Hughie with just five weeks’ notice.
Hughie hasn’t exactly been beating high caliber opposition during his boxing career. In Hughie’s last five fights, he’s beaten Fred Kassi, Dominick Guinn, Larry Olubamiwo, Emilio Zarate and George Arias. Hughie’s fight against Kassi was a strange one. By the 6th round, Hughie had run out of gas completely, and he was taking really bad punishment from Kassi.
Things looked pretty bleak for Hughie in the Kassi fight by round six. However, a miracle head-butt occurred, causing a bad cut over Hughie’s left eye. The referee then halted the fight in the 7th round, sending the fight to the scorecards. Luckily for Hughie, he had built up an early lead and got the decision win. Still, the way that Hughie gassed out in six rounds from the pressure from Kassi had got to be a real cause for concern for him and Peter. I don’t buy the reason for Hughie gassing out being from his skin condition. I think it was just a case of Hughie not having great stamina to begin with, and him not being capable of handling pressure from someone. Frankly, I wasn’t surprised to see how badly Hughie gassed out. He’d been involved with a ton of mismatches against fodder opposition up until the Kassi fight. Hughie couldn’t handle being pressured by Kassi from what I saw, and it caused him to gas out. Like I said, the head clash was a miracle for Hughie, and he should be thankful it occurred. I just hope that we don’t see a similar pattern in Hughie’s future fights where his matches end with cuts from head-butts after he gasses out at the midpoint of his bouts.
In looking at some of Hughie’s recent fights, I think he needs to learn how to stand in the pocket more. He’s doing too much running and holding, and I think it’s causing him to get tired. You don’t see too many 6’6” heavyweights running around the ring like Hughie does. The bigger heavyweights know better than to move too much. They realize that they’ll gas out if they move too much. I think Hughie needs to get a clue and stop moving all the time. The problem that Hughie has is he doesn’t have the punching power to stand in front of his opponents to make them fear him. As such, the guys that Hughie is fighting are walking him down and looking to land their shots. Hughie has been fortunate that his opposition has been horrible.