Andy Ruiz Jr vs. Chris Arreola on Fox pay-per-view on April 24th

By Boxing News - 03/01/2021 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Andy Ruiz Jr will be returning to the ring on April 24th to take on Chris Arreola in the main event on FOX pay-per-view at a still-to-be-determined venue. Mike Coppinger is reporting the news on this odd PPV headliner.

There’s no word on the price of the event. It would be shocking if boxing fans are expected to pay $70 per household to watch two chubby heavyweights, Arreola and Ruiz, BOTH of which are coming off losses and 1 1/2 year layoffs.

If you’re going to put a fight of this nature on PPV, it would be nice to see it heavily discounted to $5 per household range if that.

Fans shocked

Boxing fans on social media have reacted negatively to the extreme after learning that Ruiz’s comeback fight against Arreola will be shown on Fox PPV. There are no words. It’s a brazen move.

What you don’t want to do is burn bridges with the boxing public by charging fans a steep price to see a run-of-the-mill fight that has no business being sold on PPV. In this writer’s view, Ruiz vs. Arreola is a nice undercard fight for a regular network fight on Fox, but no way is this a PPV fight.

It would be interesting to know how many PPV buys the Ruiz vs. Arreola fight organizers are expecting it to get? If they’re under the illusions of this fight bringing in over a million PPV buys, they could be sadly disappointed.

Image: Andy Ruiz Jr vs. Chris Arreola on Fox pay-per-view on April 24th

This is the type of fight that might bring in a minuscule amount of buys. It’s not just that it’s a horrible fight because it’s certainly all of that, but we’re still in the pandemic, and there’s high unemployment.

Arreola, 40, had been mentioned as the next opponent for Ruiz for well over a year now, and, shockingly, it’s taken Andy this long to get the fight scheduled finally.

Is Ruiz still hungry?

Waiting this long to make the fight with Arreola happen finally indicates that Ruiz hasn’t been in a hurry to get back in the ring, which likely is due to the hard work that would be involved.

Ruiz became a millionaire from his two fights with Anthony Johsua in 2019, and obviously, the money has slowed things down in terms of him getting back in the ring.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Andy Ruiz Jr has a net worth of $10 million. With that kind of money in Ruiz’s bank account, it’s no wonder it’s taken him a year and a half to return to the ring finally.

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This event’s organizers have decided to be bold by sticking it on PPV rather than on regular FOX.

It’s clearly not a pay-pay-view-worthy fight, given that Ruiz and Arreola are coming off losses long layoffs, and neither of them is what you would consider a superstar.

Andy Ruiz Jr = One hit wonder

Indeed, Ruiz Jr, 32, what you refer to as a ‘One hit wonder,’ another Buster Douglas with how he pulled off a major upset of IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in June 2019 and then fell to pieces by eating and partying his way out of his titles.

Ruiz ballooned up to an obese 283 lbs and was easy prey for Joshua in their rematch in December 2019. Since that loss, Ruiz has been slowly but surely taking off weight with his new trainer Eddy Reynoso.

Interestingly, Ruiz dumped his trainer Manny Robles, even though it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t train hard. Now that Ruiz is with Reynoso, things are supposed to be different. We’ll see. Robles wasn’t the first trainer Ruiz dumped, and he likely won’t be the last.

Image: Andy Ruiz Jr vs. Chris Arreola on Fox pay-per-view on April 24th

The location and the undercard for the clash between former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Ruiz Jr (33-2, 22 KOs) and former two-time world title challenger Arreola (38-6-1, 33 KOs) are unknown.

Arreola last fought in August 2019 in losing a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to Adam Kownacki. While Arreola threw over 1000 punches, they were arm punches. Arreola looked so exhausted, and he had nothing on his shots.

“Sources: Andy Ruiz and Chris Arreola will headline a FOX PPV. Yes, you heard that right. PPV. The heavyweight fight has been in the works for almost a year now and will take place April 24, per @JakeNDaBox,” said @MikeCoppinger.