The fight between former unified heavyweight world titlist Andy Ruiz and former three-time world title challenger Chris Arreola, who are both from Southern California and due to meet this spring, have had their bout moved from April 24 to May 1 at a site to be announced, multiple sources with knowledge of the card told BoxingScene.
The card has not yet been announced but the Mexican-American heavyweights are due to headline the show, which will be on Fox Sports pay-per-view, according to the sources.
The fight was initially in the works for last year, but did not materialize due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In June 2019, Ruiz (33-2, 22 KOs), 31, of Imperial, California, was a short-notice replacement when he knocked out Anthony Joshua in the seventh round to take his unified heavyweight title belts in a massive upset at Madison Square Garden in New York. But six months later, Joshua regained the belts in a one-sided decision victory over the dramatically out of shape Ruiz in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Ruiz did not fight at all in 2020.
Arreola (38-6-1, 33 KOs), who turned 40 on March 5, is 0-3 in world title fights but has always been in entertaining fights. In his world title fights, he was stopped by Vitali Klitschko in the 10th round in 2009, by Bermane Stiverne in the sixth round of their rematch in 2014 and by Deontay Wilder in the eighth round in 2016.
After the Wilder fight Arreola bounced back to win two lesser fights in a row but then lost his most recent bout in August 2019, when he dropped a unanimous decision to then-unbeaten Adam Kownacki in an all-out slugfest that set various CompuBox records for a heavyweight fight.
The undercard for the pay-per-view is also set, according the sources.
In the co-feature, rising junior middleweight contender Sebastian Fundora (16-0-1, 11 KOs) will face Jorge Cota (30-4, 27 KOs) in a 12-round bout
Fundora, 23, a southpaw from Coachella, California, known as “The Towering Inferno” because at 6-foot-5 he is huge for a 154-pound fighter, impressed in his last fight when he annihilated former world title challenger Habib Ahmed in the second round on Dec. 5 on the Fox Sports PPV undercard of unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr.’s defense against Danny Garcia at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Cota, 33, of Mexico, has won two fights in a row since suffering back-to-back losses to Jeison Rosario -- who would go on to win a unified junior middleweight world title --- by split decision in April 2019 and Jermell Charlo by third-round knockout as a late replacement in a June 2019 nontitle bout.
Another fight on the pay-per-view will pit former lightweight world titlist Omar Figueroa Jr. (28-1-1, 19 KOs) against Abel Ramos (26-4-2, 20 KOs) in a welterweight bout. They are both coming off losses to Yordenis Ugas, who now holds a welterweight world title.
Figueroa, 31, of Weslaco, Texas, who is the older brother of secondary junior featherweight world titlist Brandon Figueroa, has not fought since getting knocked down in the first round and losing a lopsided unanimous decision to Ugas in July 2019 on the Manny Pacquiao-Keith Thurman undercard at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The fight will be only Figueroa’s fourth since 2015.
Ramos, 29, of Casa Grande, Arizona, dropped a split decision to Ugas for a vacant secondary welterweight world title in last September.
In the opening bout of the pay-per-view, rising welterweight prospect Jesus Ramos (15-0, 14 KOs), 20, a southpaw from Casa Grande, Arizona – Abel’s nephew – is due to face battle-tested veteran and former U.S. Olympian Javier Molina (22-3, 9 KOs), 31, of Norwalk, California.
Ramos is coming off a second-round knockout of Jesus Emilio Bojorquez on Feb. 27. Molina’s last fight was in September, when he lost a 10-round unanimous decision to former junior lightweight and lightweight world titlist Jose Pedraza in a junior welterweight bout inside. Molina was subsequently released by Top Rank and became a free agent.
Dan Rafael was ESPN.com's senior boxing writer for fifteen years, and covered the sport for five years at USA Today. He was the 2013 BWAA Nat Fleischer Award winner for excellence in boxing journalism.
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