By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is interested in adding his fighter unbeaten #8 WBO, #11 IBF, #11 WBC heavyweight Andy Ruiz (26-0, 17 KOs) to the Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley undercard on April 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
According to Lance Pugmire of the LA Times, Arum wants to match the 26-year-old Ruiz against 44-year-old former heavyweight contender Ike Ibeabuchi (20-0, 15 KOs) on the undercard. Arum is going to try and make the Ibeabuchi-Ruiz fight if possible. Ibeabuchi was just released from prison last year after having series 15 years.
This is a tough fight for Ibeabuchi for his first fight in 17 years. Arum is doing him no favors at all by looking to put him in with the hard hitting Ruiz. Granted, Ruiz isn’t what I would consider a high quality heavyweight, but he’s at least a fringe level contender. He’s world class, albeit near the bottom. Ibeabuchi is obviously going to be very rusty after sitting in prison all those years.
He’s also pretty old to be making a comeback. I guess this is one of those sink or swim type of a fight for Ibeabuchi. Unfortunately, that’s really how he’s going to need to be matched every time if he wants to be able to get ranked high quickly in order to get a world title shot. Ibeabuchi isn’t young enough to take the slow approach with his pro career.
If he were to be moved slowly to ease his way back into fighting, he would likely need three to four years before he would be ranked high enough to get a title shot. By then, Ibeabuchi would be 47 or 48, and probably way too old to do anything.
Ruiz has a fight next month against journeyman Danny Batchelder on January 16th at The Bomb Factory, in Dallas, Texas.
“One more tidbit: Arum said he’ll try to get heavyweight bout Ike Ibeabuchi vs. Andy Ruiz on Pacquiao-Bradley card,” Pugmire said on his Twitter.
It’s smart for Arum to add Ibeabuchi vs. Ruiz to the Pacquiao-Bradley 3 card because the card needs some serious help in order to bring in boxing fans to want to purchase it on HBO pay-per-view. Judging by the comment sections, there are a lot of boxing fans that have zero interest in paying money to see Pacquiao fight Bradley again. Pacquiao has already clearly established that he’s better than Bradley in their previous two fights together, and Arum isn’t going to be able to sell the fight by pointing out that Bradley is improved because of his win over an out of shape, easy to hit Brandon Rios. I don’t think anyone is going to believe. If someone is going to want to dump $70 in watching Pacquiao fight Bradley again, they’ve got to see it as something that will be interesting to watch. Without a great undercard, I doubt that the fans will want to pay to see Bradley and Pacquiao fight yet again.
Ibeabuchi last fought in 1999 in beating a young Chris Byrd by a 5th round knockout. Ibeabuchi looked great in that fight in coming in at a career high 244lbs. Ibeabuchi’s previous best win was over David Tua in a war in a 12 round war in 1997. Ibeabuchi didn’t have it easy in winning that fight, as he was hit frequently by huge bombs from Tua.
Ibeabuchi can be out-boxed, but I’m not sure that the flabby Andy Ruiz will be the one to do it.
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