While Ruiz may be a tougher matchup for AJ, it's unfortunate that the optics to the casual fan will be, "that jacked British champ is fighting a smaller fat guy". Miller may have been all glitter and no gold but he presented the image Eddie wanted for AJ's US debut: big, brash American with an undefeated record and AJ going to conquer him in his hometown of New York.
Ortiz wouldn't have ticked all the boxes that Miller did (irrelevant of their actual comparative skills) but he did have some name recognition and had the potential to be used as a measuring stick based on his performance against Wilder. Sounds like his promotion thought they could eke out a random and lost out. Oh well. Good luck to Andy, hope it's a compelling fight.
Ortiz wouldn't have ticked all the boxes that Miller did (irrelevant of their actual comparative skills) but he did have some name recognition and had the potential to be used as a measuring stick based on his performance against Wilder. Sounds like his promotion thought they could eke out a random and lost out. Oh well. Good luck to Andy, hope it's a compelling fight.
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