By Terence Dooley

Adam Booth, who has guided David Haye to the pinnacle of the heavyweight division, took time out to chat exclusively with BoxingScene.com during David Haye’s press conference in Manchester.  Haye, 23-1 (21), is due to lock horns with Ruiz, 44-8-1 (30), on April 3rd at the MEN Arena, Manchester. 

Although Ruiz fought here in the UK earlier in his career the two-time WBA title holder, and the only Hispanic to become heavyweight champion, may be largely unknown to British armchair fans. 

However, some of these fans may vaguely recall seeing Ruiz on the first-ever Sky PPV event, Frank Bruno's pitiful WBC title defence against Mike Tyson, as highlights of the previous night's 'Heavyweight Explosion' bill were televised as part of that PPV.  Ruiz, of course, was knocked out in 19-seconds by David Tua on that ‘Explosion’ card, prior to Tuaman's weight gain and ritual humiliation at the hands of Lennox Lewis, yet Booth believes that the Tua result, far from being a good omen, is highly misleading.

“John Ruiz has only ever been stopped once, by David Tua, one of the most powerful heavyweights of the past twenty years, so we can’t look at that,” stressed Booth.  “If Ruiz does get caught then of course he’ll look to protect himself.  He is so effective at taking away other people’s skills and attributes.  Ruiz has to protect his space to do what he wants to do - that is a big challenge (for David in this fight).”

Ruiz is analogous to a modern day Kenny Norton, allow him into a contest and he is a nightmare proposition yet if you tag him hard and often early in a fight, as Tua, Roy Jones and James Toney did, he will either hit the deck, as he did versus Tua, or retreat into his shell, as we saw in the Jones and Toney bouts.  Booth also believes that Ruiz can be knocked out off his stride early in a fight.

“One hundred percent,” agreed Booth.  “He retreated into his shell against Roy Jones because he couldn’t see the punches coming.  Against James Toney, Ruiz was caught with counter right hands, again these are shots you don’t see and they take you by surprise.  When he was knocked out by Tua he was trading with Tua and you saw what happened.  John Ruiz has had every punch from every style and with every level of power thrown at him in his career so he will believe that David won’t be able to show him nothing new.”

Booth also believes that Ruiz's new training regime, John has hooked up with Miguel Diaz, will bring give him an extra edge.  Indeed, Booth believes that the ‘Quiet Man’ is making changes across the board, starting with his footwear.

“Yeah, he has a new trainer and a change is as good as a rest sometimes.  I was watching John skipping on YouTube the other day and I noticed that he was wearing a new brand of trainers, someone must have told him they were the best running shoes and he’s switched to them, it shows the type of mentality he now has,” declared Booth

“All of a sudden he has another crack at the heavyweight title, and in a big venue and against a new holder, he won’t change to the extent where he can out-box David, that won’t happen, but if he does a bit more boxing than brawling in the gym then we’ll see a fresh Ruiz come fight night.  One thing John will always be able to do is brawl.”

Don't laugh, Lennox Lewis, when asked what was the difference in his rematch with Oliver McCall, told Larry Merchant that his white shoes had thrown Oliver into disarray, although he stopped short of claiming that they had brought about McCall's in-ring nervous breakdown, another white substance was the root of that memorable meltdown.  Still, Booth has a point; Ruiz looks reborn in training and could be a tough test for Haye.

Speaking of running shoes, people have asked if Haye will bring his track shoes to the Ruiz fight, the inference being that Haye, for all his talk, ran against Nikolay Valuev.  This is nonsense, Haye moved, jabbed and laid traps for Valuev in that fight implementing a dying art known as ‘boxing’, as opposed to incessant holding, to bring about victory. 

“No one said it was a bad fight during the [Valuev] fight as there was an air of tension, people were waiting to see when David would get squashed,” said Booth when discussing the Valuev performance.

“If you watch it back you can see why the fight developed in that way.  You can see the technical side, jabs to the belly to stop him [Valuev] walking forward, jabs to the belly to stop him throwing that left hook and give David the distance to get his shots off, David would then get out off the spot he was in and repeat the process.”

Haye was criticised after his last appearance here in Manchester when he boxed within himself during a points win over Ismail Abdoul in 2006.  Prior to that one, many people had wondered if Haye would ever be able to do the 12-rounds distance.  Haye proved that he could and people said, “Well, he wasn't under much pressure was he?” 

Later, Haye goes 12 with Valuev, who is huge, in a high pressure, away day encounter and what does he hear, “Yeah, he did the 12, again, but he didn't knock the guy out did he?”  Consider, David went the distance with Abdoul then gave us a blood and guts war in his next encounter, that dramatic ninth round TKO of Giacobbe Fragomeni.  Could history repeat itself on April the 3rd?

“I don’t want to see that much blood!” laughed Booth when reminded of the Fragomeni showdown.  “Although I don’t want a calm night because we both thrive on the atmosphere and the crowd.  David will be in that zone where he is focussed and he loves it when people enjoy watching him fight.  He gets off on entertaining people.”

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