By Scott Gilfoid: Dereck Chisora could be getting a big fight soon against former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. Eddie Hearn says he’s made an official offer to Premier Boxing Champions (PBC], the management for Ruiz (33-2, 22 KOs) to face Chisora.
According to Hearn, PBC wants a more significant offer before they’ll entertain the idea of making the fight.
Ruiz Jr, 32, hasn’t fought since May of last year, as he recently had knee surgery. A fight against the 38-year-old Chisora (32-12, 23 KOs) would be another tune-up for Ruiz, whose career has gone into a disappointing stall since losing his three heavyweight titles against Anthony Joshua in their rematch in December 2019.
Showing very little ambition, Ruiz has fought just once in the last three years, laboring to an unimpressive 12 round unanimous decision over 40-year-old Chris Arreola the previous year in May. The fight was shockingly placed on FOX PPV despite both Ruiz and Arreola coming off losses.
Arreola dropped Ruiz in the second round and had him badly hurt, looking nothing like the fighter that had blitzed an unbeaten Joshua in 2019.
“When is Chisora out next? I want to make Chisora against Andy Ruiz Jr,” said Hearn to TalkSport. “I made PBC an offer for that fight on Friday. They want more money, understood.
“But I want to make Chisora vs. Ruiz, that’s a great fight,” said Hearn.
Fighting the old faded Chisora, who was never great even during his prime, won’t resonate with U.S boxing fans. Hardcore boxing fans in the States view Chisora as an old guy ready for retirement, and casual fans have never heard of him.
Chisora has lost his last three contests against Joseph Parker x 2 and Oleksander Usyk. The way Chisora looked in his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision defeat against Parker last December was terrible.
Chisora was knocked down three times by Parker, and the only reason he wasn’t stopped was due to the lack of killer instinct in the New Zealander. If Parker weren’t so timid, he would have likely finished Chisora by the fourth round.
If Ruiz does fight Chisora, it would be a business-level for the consumption of the UK boxing fans rather than U.S fans, and it won’t help Andy get the trilogy match against Anthony Joshua that he’s been pushing for.
The fight that Ruiz was supposed to have taken to get back in title contention was against Luis Ortiz, but he’s chosen not to face him for some reason. Why hasn’t Ruiz taken the fight with the #4 WBC ranked ‘King Kong’ Ortiz? It’s pretty obvious.
Even at 42, the powerful southpaw Ortiz (33-2, 28 KOs) is too dangerous for Ruiz and would potentially wreck his chances of ever getting the trilogy match against Joshua that he’s been asking for.
The way that Andy Ruiz looked against the badly faded Arreola last May, he would lose to Ortiz, likely by knockout.
Ruiz looks almost as shot as Chisora at this point, and whatever chances he had of ever regaining a world champion, he’s thrown that out the window entirely by not staying active.
A fight between Ruiz and Chisora would be a match between two chubby fighters going nowhere. At this point, Ruiz doesn’t seem interested in fighting contenders and is just seemingly waiting, hoping that he’ll get a big money fight offered to him with having to work for it.
Ruiz recently dumped his trainer Manny Robles and is now trained by Eddy Reynoso, the same coach that Canelo Alvarez has been with his entire career. Unfortunately, Ruiz looks worse rather than improved, suggesting that he wasted his time by changing trainers.
A trainer like Reynoso can’t help if Ruiz is fighting only once every three years. It doesn’t matter who Ruiz is trained by at this stage of his career because he doesn’t seem to have the hunger that he once had.
With a net worth of $10 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, Ruiz doesn’t seem to have the drive to stay active and take the challenging fights that he needs to for him to be a viable contender in the heavyweight division.
