WATCH LIVE: Andy Ruiz vs. Anthony Joshua NY Press Conference Live Stream

By Boxing News - 09/05/2019 - Comments

By Charles Brun: Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr. will hold the first of three news conferences on Wednesday in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Both fighters will be in attendance to promote their December 7 rematch in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  It’ll be a full week of press conferences for the fighters. They’ll be meeting on Thursday in New York, and then on Friday in London.

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New York an odd choice for Joshua-Ruiz rematch press conference

It would have been better for the U.S press conference to take place in Los Angeles, California rather than New York. Ruiz’s fan base is in Southern California, not New York. Joshua arguably has more boxing fans in New York than Ruiz. It doesn’t make sense at all for the press conference to take place there. If the idea is to create more subscribers to DAZN, then California where the U.S press conference should take place. It’s unclear whether Team Ruiz had any say so about the location for the U.S press conference.

Ruiz may need to talk it up to keep boxing fans from falling asleep, because former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (22-1, 21 KOs) could make it dull if he’s going to be using canned speeches.

Joshua needs to liven up this time at the press conferences

He won’t be able to sell the Ruiz Jr. rematch by trash talking Lennox Lewis repeatedly, because that’s already played out between them. Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn will obviously shoulder most of the way of marketing the fight by giving countless interviews, but Joshua needs to help out this time. Giving speeches isn’t going to get the job done.

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Joshua’s popularity has increased after loss to Ruiz

Perhaps the best thing that could have happened to Joshua was him losing to Ruiz, because it made him more popular for some reason.  All the fans that were waiting for Joshua to finally lose have come out of the woodwork, and now they’re hoping Ruiz will end his career. Joshua’s promoter Hearn has already said recently that he won’t be retiring if he loses a second time to Ruiz. They’ll just keep going.

Obviously it’ll be harder to keep the gravy train going after Joshua gets beaten again, but the fans will likely stick around. If for no other reason, the boxing fans would continue to watch Joshua’s fights to see how bad it can get. Hearn will need to consider making the decisions when it comes to Joshua’s fights if he gets beaten again by Ruiz. He can’t let Joshua lead him around by the nose, and mindlessly steer his ship into the rocky shores. Hearn needs to stand up and tell Joshua that he won’t stand back and let him destroy his career with his reckless decision making.

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Ruiz with a lot to gain in rematch

A second win for Ruiz is going to pave his way to some interesting fights against Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, Oleksandr Usyk and possibly Dillian Whyte. As long as Ruiz keeps winning, the opportunities for big money fights are endless. Even if Ruiz loses the rematch with Joshua, the money is going to be so good that he’ll laugh all the way to the bank. So instead of Joshua cashing out, it’ll be Ruiz.

Joshua needs to show some emotion this time, and get in Ruiz’s face to let the boxing public know that he wants to get his titles heavyweight titles back. If AJ isn’t going to do it on his own, then Ruiz needs to put his feet to the fire and grill him about what really happened last time they fought. Joshua has blamed his loss on being preoccupied with the fight against Deontay Wilder just over the horizon. He didn’t admit that he lost to the more talented fighter in Ruiz, and he wasn’t trained properly for the moment by Rob McCracken.