Andy Ruiz told Anthony Joshua “to his face” about the punch that beat him

By Boxing News - 10/31/2019 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. says he told Anthony Joshua to his face that “lucky punch” that he hurt him with last June was a punch that he prayed for and had been wishing for his whole life.

On December 7th, Ruiz (33-1, 22 KOs) is planning on repeating the “lucky punch” to knockout Joshua (22-1, 21 KOs) once again in their fight on DAZN and Sky Box Office at the Diriyah Arena, Diriyah, in Saudi Arabia.

There were excuses from Joshua, 29, his boxing fans and his promoter Eddie Hearn after he was stopped in the 7th round on June 1 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The #1 excuse is that Joshua wasn’t prepared for the fight. Ruiz was brought in as a replacement 3 weeks before the fight after Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller failed three drug tests, and was removed from the contest.

Ruiz told Joshua to his face about the “lucky punch”

“I don’t plan on killing nobody,” said Ruiz on his social media site when asked ‘Do you plan on killing Joshua?’ I don’t think God would want that, but I’m pretty sure he wants me to win, and to prove wrong everybody that’s doubting me. And he was saying, ‘God’s lucky punch’ or something like that.

“I told Joshua to his face, literally to his face, that it was a punch from God because I’ve been praying and wishing for this opportunity my whole life, and I took advantage of it. I’m going to do my best like I did the first time, bro. Us fighters, we do what we can in there,” said Ruiz.

You can tell from Ruiz’s comments about wanting to prove the doubters wrong again that he has a chip on his shoulder. He obviously doesn’t like being overlooked by boxing fans due to his physique, and he wants to show them that his win over Joshua wasn’t a fluke thing.

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Joshua making mistake in facing Ruiz in immediate rematch?

Joshua and his promoter Hearn should have thought twice about taking the immediate rematch with Ruiz. Hearn says they had to take the fight due to the rematch clause. In other words, if Joshua didn’t take the immediate rematch with Ruiz under the existing contractual terms, it wouldn’t have been as good a deal for him if they negotiated from scratch later on. Was it greed on Joshua’s part in taking the immediate rematch with Ruiz?

You can imagine that Ruiz would have been able to ask for a 50-50 split, and expect to get it in that kind of scenario. This still could blow up in Joshua’s face if he gets knocked out a second time by Ruiz, because the smart thing for him to do would be to face him in a year or two. Yes, the money wouldn’t be as good for Joshua later on down the line, but at least he would have a better chance of winning. If Joshua loses the rematch on December 7th, his career is going to implode.