By Aragon Garcia: Andy Ruiz Jr. is asking Anthony Joshua to give him a trilogy fight after getting beaten by him in their rematch on Saturday night in Saudi Arabia. Ruiz gave Joshua a rematch, and he’d like for the British heavyweight to return the favor and give him the trilogy fight that he’s asking for.
Joshua won tonight by a 12 round unanimous decision over Ruiz by the scores 119-109, 118-110, 118-110.
Ruiz says that his sudden popularity after his win over Joshua kind of went to his head, and he didn’t train hard as he should have.
Ruiz (33-2, 22 KOs) revealed after tonight’s fight that he wasn’t in shape, and he overlooked Joshua. He thought it was going to be the same easy fight as their match last June. Ruiz, who weighed in at the third heaviest weight of his career at 283 lbs, admits that he was too heavy for the fight. Andy wanted to do some things during the contest, but his weight wouldn’t allow him.
Ruiz: The Fame got to me
“I should have trained harder, and I looked passed him,” said Ruiz to secondsout in explaining why he lost. “I thought it was going to be the same thing as on June 1st. We did work on some things, but me being a lot heavier, I didn’t perform at my best. There’s a lot of things they were telling me, and I think the fame got to me.
“I’m happy I’m the first Mexican heavyweight champion of the world, I got to learn from my mistakes, and bounce back. I’ve had so many rollercoasters in my life, and this is one of them. I’m going to bounce back. We’re going to work on that,” said Ruiz about a rematch with Joshua. “I won won, and he won one, and we are going to make a trilogy,” said Ruiz.
Andy’s weight for the first fight was 268 lbs, which is a lot, but not for him. He was able to fight at a high level at that weight. But for his rematch with Joshua tonight, he weighed 15 lbs heavier at 283 lbs, and he wasn’t able to fight with the same all out intensity. It looked like the weight was too much for Ruiz to maneuver around the ring to get at Joshua. The agility that Ruiz had in the first fight against AJ was missing tonight.
Joshua won’t have time to fight Ruiz again soon
The unfortunate news for Ruiz is Joshua probably won’t have an opportunity to fight him anytime soon. Now that Joshua has won back his IBF, WBA and WBO heavyweight titles, he has to defend against mandatory challengers Oleksandr Usyk and Kubrat Pulev.
Those two fights could take all of 2020 to satisfy. On top of that, Joshua wants to fight the winner of the Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury rematch for the undisputed heavyweight championship. That fight, if it’s going to happen, will take place likely in 2021.