Comments Thread For: Anthony Joshua Left To Pick Up The Pieces After Ruiz's MSG Heist

[StrangerInTown]

Many UK fighters are seemingly cherished win, lose or draw.
Must be hard to compose a consistent and hungry work ethic under such circumstances.
Americans embrace a cynical and fickle view of the sport.
The Mexican fan is the most devoted, making the Ruiz victory an even more important event.

[NachoMan]

Joshua was 1-1 after 2 rounds. He was outboxed in all next rounds. Joshua will have to change his technique and become Wlad 2.0 to win again, not just a better cardio.

He already was Wlad 2.0. That's exactly what you saw on Saturday.

"...and the next big thing is about to become the last big bust..."

-Larry Merchant

[Detroit29]

I have to say i gave Ruiz no chance to win. I think sometimes we as fans look at a challenger and make our decisions based on rankings by many different sources outside the alphabet rankings. And then we kick back in our lazy boys and says "the champ got this". And then stuff like this happens.

I have always said that it's these kind of fights that champs need to REALLY prepared for. Why? Because these unknowns want to be known. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So naturally, they are bringing everything with them to the ring. As bad as many have trashed Wilders resume (and it is not the greatest) imagine Wilder losing to the likes of Duhappas, or Spzilka, or Arreloa. Imagine, Hagler losing to Hamsho, Leonard to Davey Boy Green, or De La Hoya to Direll Cooley. They would be the butt of every joke and we not hold them in high regard. Some would just because they support their fighters through the ups and downs. If a champ loses to another champ, the fall isn't that hard. But fans will continue to call other fighters tomato cans and bums. It comes with the territory of the fight game.

[Ajvar]

He already was Wlad 2.0. That's exactly what you saw on Saturday.

"...and the next big thing is about to become the last big bust..."

-Larry Merchant

And Larry Merchant appeared to be so wrong. At least he got payed there unlike you so skip people reading your foolishness.

[NachoMan]

And Larry Merchant appeared to be so wrong. At least he got payed there unlike you so skip people reading your foolishness.

Larry wasn't wrong that night. Wlad got completely unwound by Sanders that night; then it all happened again a year later against Lamon Brewster. Good for Wlad that he stuck with it, got a better trainer and redeemed himself, but if you want to pretend that that **** never happened then go ahead and keep living in your own world.

[Phenom]

If you rewatch the first couple of rounds again, there was nothing comfortable about it for Joshua. Before Ruiz got decked, Ruiz was relatively inactive going forward, but so was Joshua. I think most people (not all) gave Joshua the first couple of rounds, but only on the strength of maybe a couple of landed jabs in the first round and 1 landed punch of note in the second.

'Comfortably outboxing' suggests that Joshua was dictating the pace and nature of the exchanges, and that was far from the case as neither took control until the third, and then the control switched hands very quickly from Joshua to Ruiz.

The worrying thing from Joshua's perspective is the inability to recover from the shot he took in the third, and his apparant cardio weakness. I'm not sure he can fix his recovery-time issues, so to comfortably win the rematch, first he needs to avoid shots like the one he took in the third that opened him up, and is that even possible over 12 rounds ? I think that's the major issue people will have going into future fights - what happens if/when 'that punch' lands - a bit like the anticipation with Khan (it makes all future Joshua fights that much more compelling though - so a commercial win there).

Secondly the cardio issue. That's a mystery as he's trained for 12 before, so either something went wrong in the run-up, or he experienced something he hasn't before that drained him. All speculation of course, but suspect No.1 is that the nerves of being away from home hit him just before the fight and nervous energy drain did the rest. However - nerves might get to him in a rematch for different reasons, even if he is at home next time, so he needs to get his head straight and also train for 12.

Its not certain he can come back yet, he has to show he still has the heart and hunger needed to go into the trenches and bite down hard.

True

He really seemed to be having a lot of problems in the early rounds bending his knees and couldn't throw a proper jab

Only his straight right landed a couple of times otherwise he was useless outside and inside Ruiz had the faster hands just lit him up

[WhitehouseTKO]

AJ QUIT! He did not want anymore of that man. Just standing there in his corner not walking out to the Ref as instructed. HE QUIT! "Thanks for the fight John, just don't HIT me no mo! Standing in the corner saying " NO MAS" with the British accent.

[boxingfan4ever]

Who said that cant see anything happening different? He literally just got caught with a great punch while rushing in. He certainly wont lose the 2nd fight with Ruiz. This is Rahman knocking out Lennox Lewis man

Rahman put out Lewis with one power punch, that was! Ruiz beat Joshua from round 2 to round 7, put him down 4 times, make him quit...that was a completely dominating act by Ruiz...