Andy Ruiz Jr. Floors Anthony Joshua Four Times on Path to Victory.

                               Historical Upset Turns Boxing World Upside-Down

They trained Anthony Joshua’s body but they didn’t train his mind. So it was that he turned up in Madison Square Garden in a half-baked frame of mind that allowed a much smaller last minute stand-in long shot to put him on the canvas four times.  There were perhaps a few of us  that both welcomed that outcome and fewer still predicted it as   likely.

A day before the fight I was discussing with my longtime friend David Lamkin how so many millions of casual fight fans were giving Ruiz no chance.  That was ridiculous in itself even for the novitiates grown addicted to the over-hyped  tempo of Mixed Martial Arts where all it takes is a tattoo on some taut muscle bulk to impress the frat boys.

Hadn’t any of these people seen a fat boy fight?  The first time I saw Andy  Ruiz Jr. he didn’t remind me at all of Butterbean (as many of the fascinati are inclined to mention).  He reminded me of a guy I knew a long time ago, a 300 lb post adolescent with a body that touched both sides of a doorway.  His polite nickname was “Pudge” of course (you didn’t dare ridicule him with sobriquets like “Fat Boy”) and he had the fastest hands in the juvenile delinquent business.

 We used to drive weekly from Pennsylvania to Dino’s bar in   New York because the drinking age then and there was eighteen.  We went there to drink mostly but to fight if the opportunity availed itself.  Being a year older than the oldest of us,  Pudge was our unofficial leader.  While I never saw him pick a fight, I saw him finish plenty of them.  He had fast hands, quick combinations, and power behind his punches.

When I saw Andy  Ruiz Jr. fight the tall muscled Adonis like Ukrainian Dimitrenko not more than a few months ago, that’s who I thought of.  Pudge Benzoni.  It wasn’t called “fat shaming” back in the day but his kind of body attracted some ridicule, a big mistake for many a poor boy, who went down with a few cracks of Pudge’s meaty fat fists and a body which shivered and shook as he threw haymakers and short shots at would-be tough guys.

I like Anthony Joshua – as anyone would like an ambassador of boxing. But I’d always said he was steered away from tough fights by Eddie Hearn, a smart moneymaker, great talker, and (in spite of my early dislike of him)   a man good for boxing.   Between David Lamkin and I, a main point of contention was whether or not Anthony Joshua had ever faced a serious challenge. 

I admit, as Lamkin always maintained, that it was a triumph for Anthony Joshua to beat even  a nearly forty year old Vladimir Klitchko —  but not that much of one.  Still it was the only match challenge I’d seen him face — until Andy  Ruiz Jr.      

  I never believed Eddie Hearn’s hype about Deontay Wilder ‘ducking’ a fight with his boy.  There was all this talk, no documentation;  all Eddie Hearn had to do was show fight fans a contract that didn’t include the ridiculous short money 70 Joshua vs. 30 Wilder.  What was the rationale for that shenanigans anyway?  That Wilder was from Alabama?  That he is less articulate?  (It’s a bit smug, a bit too condescending and colonial besides) That he’s not as lovable to casual fight fans?  That’s all b.s. to real fight fans who only want to see who is the better fighter, the one who will be remembered for the moments of greatness and heightened consciousness it brought to our lives.

So I gotta’ say Viva Mexico! and Viva Andy Ruiz Jr.  It’s okay you want to call him a ‘counter-puncher’ if that’s how you see it.  But Ruiz Jr.’s fight is more than that. He had great head movement,  great poise,  ate big punches, and passed in and out of the violent circle as if all along he had a passport to victory.  But mainly what Andy Ruiz Jr. did, that other fighters failed to do, is get his punches off in the very same fractional seconds Anthony Joshua launched his.

You can have the big reach. You can have the big   punch, the 1-2-3 combination or the 2-3 or any other combination.  You can have the great body.  But you can’t defeat the earthquake shivering molten mass of energy contained in Andy Ruiz Jr.’s bull-like ham-hocks, back, legs, and fists. 

Ruiz got dumped early in the 3^rd round and the British fight fans whooped it up so loud that you can hear them from Madison Square Garden all the way to the Canadian border.   But you know what I saw as Ruiz looked up from the seat of his pants?  I saw his eyes narrow on Anthony Joshua. I saw his focus. 

He had no words but I saw what he was thinking as surely as if it were flashing on the MSG big screen.  He was thinking: “Okay, motherfucker, okay.  Now we’ll see what we’re both made of.”