Andy Ruiz: After ‘Tyson Fury’s performance, “NO way he beats me”

By Boxing News - 09/15/2019 - Comments

By Charles Brun: Andy Ruiz Jr. says “there’s no way” that Tyson Fury can beat him after the way that he struggled on Saturday with his tune-up opponent Otto Wallin (20-1, 13 KOs) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs) won a 12 round unanimous decision by a wide set of scores, the fans saw the fight as close affair.

The fight was streamed on the ESPN+ app in the U.S. Fury 6’9″, dealt with a horribly bad cut over his right eye from the 3rd round. It was a cut that would have led to a lot of fights being stopped. He was a bloody mess for nine rounds, and he was lucky the contest wasn’t stopped.

Fury, 31, recently made a comment about how he believed that he would have no problems defeating IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Ruiz Jr. (33-1, 22 KOs), and he said he can defeat him with one hand. Ruiz recently dethroned heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua by a 7th round knockout on June 1, ending his three-year reign as a world champion.

Fury’s performance last Saturday night against Wallin suggests that he wouldn’t beat Ruiz if the two ever fought each other. But Fury may not ever get to the point where he can meet up with the 30-year-old Ruiz, because he still has a rematch against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder staring him in the face for February 22. If last night’s performance by Fury is indicative of what we’ll be seeing from him in the Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs) rematch, he’s going to get slaughtered by him.

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The judges turn in embarrassingly lopsided scores in favor of Fury

The fight could have been a draw or a narrow win for Wallin. The fact that one of the judges scored it 10-2 in Fury’s favor has a lot of boxing fans saying that Wallin never had a chance  to win a decision. Another judge scored it 9-3 for Fury, which equally embarrassingly bad. Here are the scores by the 3 judges that worked the fight: 116-112, 117-111 and 118-110. None of the scores made sense. At best, Fury could have been given the nod by a 115-113 score, but to have two judges turn in lopsided scores, it made it look like Wallin never had a chance to win by a decision.

Tim Bradley says Fury won the fight “easily”

“It definitely will push back the rematch,” said ESPN commentator Tim Bradley in talking about Fury’s scheduled February 22 rematch against Deontay Wilder. Tyson Fury showing his grit, showing his determination, showing his will, showing you what a champion is made of. Taking it inside the trenches, and going down to the body, and breaking down Otto Wallin, and winning the match. It wasn’t the prettiest of matches. I think the cuts made it worse than it was. And, I think Tyson Fury was winning the fight pretty easily, pretty handily, but you know. I think the fight is definitely bigger [against Wilder].

I think Deontay Wilder was a little nervous, especially when he saw the cut. ‘Don’t do this to me, and don’t mess up the money. Don’t be a Joshua. I liked the fact that Tyson Fury went some rounds. I told you he needs some rounds. He needed those rounds. Now he can go back to the drawing board, and it wasn’t beautiful like he thought it was going to be. He struggled tonight, but he found out a way to go back to the drawing board, and refocus himself right before the big fight,” said Bradley.

A lot of boxing fans would disagree with Bradley about his opinion that Fury “easily” beat Wallin last night. There was nothing easy about it. The fight was the toughest of Fury’s career, and it could have gone either way. If this fight was Bradley’s definition of an easy fight for Fury, then you have to wonder what he would consider a tough one.