By Charles Brun: Andy Ruiz Jr. wants Anthony Joshua to know that his knockdown of him was a “lucky shot” as well in the 3rd round of their fight last June. Ruiz says he was unhurt after he climbed off the canvas after the knockdown.
Ruiz trolling Joshua
Ruiz’s comment about it being a “lucky shot” is in response to Joshua saying the same thing about his knockdown of him in the 3rd round. Both guys went down in that round, but Joshua was down TWICE and badly hurt.
It looks like Ruiz is trying to get Joshua upset by minmizing the good shot that he landed in dropping him in the third round. By calling it a lucky punch as well, Ruiz taking credit away from AJ for that good punch.
The fight was won for Ruiz in the third, as it was all target practice from that point on. He no longer feared Joshua, and was willing to take one on the way in to hit him with his powerful combinations on the inside.
If it was a “Lucky punch,” as Joshua maintains, he’ll have a chance to prove that on December 7th when he faces Ruiz in a rematch in Saudi Arabia. Joshua wants to win back his IBF, WBA and WBO heavyweight titles that he lost last June to Ruiz in New York.
Andy Ruiz says “I wasn’t hurt”
“That was a lucky shot for him, too,” Ruiz Jr. said to skysports.com. “I wasn’t that hurt because I wasn’t wobbling, and I still had the will and the fire inside of me.
“And I wanted to keep fighting and win the fight. “I got lazy. It was a punch in the blink of an eye. I thought: ‘what just happened?’”
A lot has been made about the shot that Ruiz initially hurt Joshua with in the third round. Joshua, his promoter Eddie Hearn and his boxing fans, believe that “lucky shot” that Ruiz landed in the third round is the sole reason he won the fight. However, that may not be the case. In looking back at that fight,
Ruiz was getting the better of Joshua in rounds one and two as well. The punch that Ruiz landed that hurt Joshua in the third may not have been as important as some believe it to be. What really changed after that moment was the fact that Ruiz lost his fear of Joshua and he began to attack him in a relentless manner that he wasn’t capable of handling.
Joshua done in by fast pace
More importantly, the fast pace that Ruiz set from the third round is ultimately what did Joshua in more so than the so called “lucky punch” that he landed in the third. Joshua couldn’t handle being forced to fight hard once he gassed out in round 3.
This is the same thing that we saw from Joshua in his fights with Dillian Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko. He gassed out in both fights, but got lucky when neither of them went for the finish.
AJ is ready for redemption. 🔥#RuizJoshua2 pic.twitter.com/Q0WGgJBNYz
— DAZN USA (@DAZN_USA) November 19, 2019
In Whyte’s case, he blew out his left shoulder in the 2nd round after he wobbled Joshua. He literally couldn’t finish Joshua due to his shoulder injury. Additionally, Whyte had gassed out as well in round 2, and he had nothing left to finish off Joshua.
It took Joshua three rounds to recover from being hurt by Whyte. During that time, he likely would have been knocked out if Whyte had attacked him hard like he’d done in the 2nd. In Joshua’s fight against Klitschko, he was hurt in the 6th and put on the canvas.
Joshua was exhausted from the flurry of activity between him and Wladimir, and he wasn’t able to recover from that until the 10th round. It took Joshua 4 rounds to get his second wind. That just tells that his conditioning is woefully bad, and not something that is improving with age. Wladimir should have knocked Joshua out if he hadn’t got it in his head to try and box his way to a decision.
Joshua was hurt worse by lucky shot than Ruiz
The difference between the two “lucky shots” that both fighters landed is Joshua looked far more hurt after getting hit than Ruiz did. There was a world of difference between the way Ruiz reacted after he got up off the canvas after being dropped in round 3 compared to how Joshua dealt with being hurt by a left hook moments later.
Joshua never really recovered, both from the punch and from gassing out. Unlike Klitschko and Whyte, Ruiz didn’t let Joshua rest after he hurt him. Ruiz continued to attack him in rounds 4, 5, 6 and 7. Without being given time to recover, Joshua never got his second wind, and ended up quitting in the 7th.