By Aragon Garcia: Andy Ruiz Jr. putting in a lot of hard grueling work in training with Jorge Capetillo to get in prime shape before he joins his new trainer Eddy Reynoso to begin the preparation for his September fight.
Ruiz will take a tune-up level fight first in September against Chris Arreola or Dominic Breazeale before looking to go after a top-five contender. Former two-time world title challenger Luis’ King Kong’ Ortiz is the name that is mentioned as the top contender that Andy could be fighting in 2021. But until then, he’ll take a warmup fight against a notable fighter.
Andy Ruiz Jr needs a notable name to get back in position to fight for a world title after losing his three belts against Anthony Joshua. Ruiz wasn’t in good enough condition to get to Joshua in their rematch last December, and that’s why Andy is putting his focus on losing weight.
Andy Ruiz Jr needs a few tweaks to his game to be ready to win back his IBF/WBA/WBO titles from Joshua and to defeat WBC belt holder Tyson Fury. To beat those lions, Ruiz needs to be in as good as shape as possible. He needs his weight down low, and he needs fast feet to get to them because they’re going to use movement.
As Joshua and Joseph Parker, both showed, Ruiz has problems with fighters that are mobile that don’t stand in front of him. Moreover, Ruiz will figure out a way to keep throwing punches when he’s being tied up repeatedly the way Joshua did last December.
Ruiz made the error of allowing Joshua to tie him up again and again without fighting his way through the clinches.
Reynoso now training Andy Jr
Ruiz changed out his trainer Manny Robles in favor of world-famous Eddy Reynoso, and it’ll be a whole new environment for the 30-year-old Ruiz. Reynoso is the third trainer that Ruiz has had during his career.
Besides Robles, Ruiz was trained by Abel Sanchez, who recently made some comments about Andy’s habit of not putting in a lot of effort in camp.
With Reynoso as Ruiz’s new trainer, he’ll now be working out along aside the likes of Canelo Alvarez, Luis Nery, Ryan Garcia, Oscar Valdez, and Julio César ‘Rey’ Martínez. These are talented fighters, which will help set an example of how Ruiz will need to train for him to fit in with them.
The possible opponents for former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Ruiz Jr (33-2, 22 KOs) are Dominic Breazeale (20-2, 18 KOs) and Chris Arreola (38-6-1, 33 KOs). The only problem with Arreola getting the fight with Ruiz is he supposed to be retiring after his last bout against Adam Kownacki. Arreola said that if he lost the battle, he would retire, and unfortunately, he got beat by a 12 round decision.
These two are both former world title challengers. Breazeale, 34, recently unsuccessfully battled former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder last year on May 18, but got hit with a right hand that never saw coming and knocked him out in the first round.
Three years earlier, Breazeale fought IBF champion Anthony Joshua and was knocked out in the seventh round in June 2016 in London, England. Breazeale has wins over these fine heavyweights:
- Carlos Negron
- Eric Molina
- Izuagbe Ugonoh
- Amir Mansour
- Yasmany Consuegra
- Fred Kassi
Chris Arreola with a lot of experience
Arreola, 39, has fought for heavyweight world titles on three occasions during his 17-year career, losing to Vitali Klitschko, Bermane Stiverne and Deontay Wilder. It’s rare for a contender to get three world title shots during their careers, but Arreola did it with hard work.
Arreola just turned 39 in March, but he’s young for his age. In Arreola’s last fight, he threw 1125 punches in a 12 round decision loss to Adam Kownacki last August in Brooklyn, New York.
Those weren’t arm-punches that Arreola was throwing. He was hitting the steel-chinned Kownacki with. Arreola was unloading on Kownacki with everything he had. Kownacki looked like a shell of his former self in losing his match against Robert Helenius by a fourth-round knockout last March.
It’s possible that the grueling war with Arreola took something out of Kownacki, leaving him vulnerable to the hard-hitting Helenius.