With all due respect Ibragimov was terrible. He beat nobody but a couple of ancient men. He went the distance with a middle aged Holyfield while Ruiz beat and almost knocked out a Holyfield who was 7 years younger. And that display against Wlad was imo the worst HW title fight ever though that was not only his fault.
Ruiz also beat Rahman, Golota, Oquendo and Johnson. No I definitely think Ruiz get discredited due to his style. His results speak for themselves, he was one of the better title holders of the 00s to present(which again, I'm not gonna act like is amazing either).
The competition ******....and Ruiz was the top of the dung heap. He was the least ****ty of the lot.Golata Oquedo and Holly were all damaged goods when Jawnry got to em....YOU KNOW BETTER than this! I KNOW you do!
All ranked ahead of him.. Ruiz, tua, Rahman, Holyfield were the 2nd tier at the time
True. Ruiz had one uncanny ability which distorted a realistic assesment of his ability, an ability besides the leg humping. Ruiz was always competative. He could take a shot and frustrate even the best fighters. This always made him appear better than he actually was. I have no doubt if he fought Lewis he would have made it a fight where he narrowly avoided getting Koed or outclassed.
To be fair Ruiz was also robbed a few times, including by Valuev.
This is the documentary that was made when Jones was P4P King moving up to HW to face John Ruiz. Jones trained to hard to bulk up with Mackie Shilstone. The same trainer that helped bulk up Michael Spinks to fight at HW.
•Jones was getting smashed by his HW sparring partner when he first started sparring.
•Jones was really 200lbs at the initial weigh-in but the Dr. messed up and weighed him in 193. Come fight night RJJ was 199lbs when he was re-weighed.
•RJJ being the first man in 100 years to win titles from MW to HW.
•RJJ speaking about his Dad beating him and saying how he didn't have a childhood.
•Ron Borges prediction was so off man lol.
•He made history but he also ruined himself moving back down in weight in that short time frame at that age.
All in all he still is one of the GOATs in my eyes since there is only a few guys that did what he did.
Well none of the other champs in the division wanted to fight Ruiz to unify for whatever reason. So this fight was his next best option to get a big money fight at the time. Same thing for Jones this fight was his biggest payday fight.
Well none of the other champs in the division wanted to fight Ruiz to unify for whatever reason. So this fight was his next best option to get a big money fight at the time. Same thing for Jones this fight was his biggest payday fight.
None of the top guys dodged Ruiz,, ruiz was boring and protected by don King.. He didn't want any of his champs to fight each ie byrd, ruiz, Brewster, etc.. They all basically just passed around opponents like Rahman, Golata, mccline, evander, fres,
It's a great accomplishment because it hadn't been done in 106 years.
Now I agree that he capitalized on a great opportunity because he found the right opponent at that weight who had 1/4 of the title. But still considering the size disadvantage and the fact that Ruiz still beat some decent heavyweight contenders you have to give Roy his credit for challenging himself and making it happen.
Steroids or not, you have to remember that James Toney came right back and did the same thing though and beat better fighters than Roy did at heavyweight. I even thought he was robbed against Peter in the first fight.
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