By Adam Baskin: A slender-looking former unified heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr posted a message on social media, letting Deontay Wilder know he’s “coming” for him next.
Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) said that they still need to negotiate the fight with the former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs), which, if you know anything about Andy’s recent failed negotiations with Tyson Fury, could be a bad thing.
Ruiz reportedly asked for a monstrous $20 million for the Fury fight, and the talks imploded after that, resulting in the Gypsy King moving on. If Ruiz wants $20M for a fight with the British fighter Fury, who doesn’t have a huge fan base in the U.S, you got to assume that he wants somewhere close to that for a fight against Wilder because it would be a big PPV match in the United States.
It’ll be very surprising if this fight comes off because as soon as the 33-year-old Ruiz starts talking his crazy purse demands, Wilder will wash his hands of him and go looking for a bottom-feeder-level heavyweight contender for him to get his summer tune-up to prepare for his fight with Anthony Joshua in December in Saudi Arabia.
Why Deontay should skip fighting Ruiz
1. He could lose out on the Joshua fight
2. Not worth the risk – Ruiz is a has-been
3. Negotiations could stretch to infinity
“Wilder, we’re coming, man. We’re just negotiating right now,” said Andy Ruiz Jr on social media, letting his fans know that he’s going to be fighting Deontay Wilder next.
It’s a big waste of time for Wilder to try and fight Ruiz because it’s not the match-up he needs right now to prepare him for the much taller 6’6″ Joshua in December.
If Joshua were a short, stubby, fat 6’2″ heavyweight, it would be understandable for Deontay to fight the flabby fireplug Ruiz, but he’s not. As such, what Wilder needs is a taller heavyweight with size and ability that replicates Joshua.
Predictably, the negotiations for the Ruiz fight will take Wilder right up to December, and he’ll be kicking himself for being foolish enough to have bothered with this semi-retired fighter in the first place.
Ruiz rarely fights anymore after making HUGE money in his two fights with Joshua in 2019. Andy reportedly made $10 million from those fights, and his hunger to keep fighting has nose-dived to the point where he’s only fought twice in the last four years, and those matches were against 40-year-old Chris Arreola in 2021 & 43-year-old Luis Ortiz in 2022.
In both fights, Ruiz looked terrible, like a ham & egger, getting hurt and almost knocked out.
