Andy Ruiz Jr is gearing up for his boxing comeback.
The 30-year-old hasn’t really been seen since his loss to Anthony Joshua last December in Saudi Arabia and he split with his coaching team shortly afterwards.
The first-ever Mexican-American world heavyweight champion admitted in the wake of his 12-round loss to AJ that he hadn’t trained as hard as he could have and had partied too hard following that magical night in New York last June.
Ruiz Jr shocked the world by stepping in and beating Joshua on just six weeks notice after Jarrell Miller failed several drugs tests on June 1 at Madison Square Garden.
While his dedication to training has been questioned, his father, Andy Ruiz Sr, revealed to ESPN that is now working under Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’s coach Eddy Reynoso and aims to fight Chris Arreola – a 39-year-old who went eight rounds with Deontay Wilder for the WBC title before being knocked out a few years ago – in November.
UFC president Dana White shared an amusing video of Ruiz in action recently where his trainer saw first-hand just how powerful the former champion can be!
To be fair, he took it like a champ, didn’t he? Those hooks were causing Joshua all kinds of problems in Madison Square Garden.
So where did it all go wrong for Ruiz? Former coach Manny Robles told ESPN that once Ruiz had reached the mountain top and claimed the money that came with it, his drive all but dried up.
Robles described how in a hotel suite in New York the night he beat Joshua, Team Ruiz celebrated the win.
“We cried, of course,” Robles says. “We sang and screamed and we embraced.
“Andy sat on a couch, a dumbstruck look on his face, repeatedly saying, ‘I can’t f—ing believe I won’. At some point, Andy Sr. made an announcement: “This is going to be our team forever, and we’re going to conquer the world.”
He was supposed to take a month off before getting back in the gym, training for the rematch. Instead, he took three. “He just quit and checked out, I guess,” Robles says. “Starting June 1, the day he beat Joshua, I didn’t have the same fighter.”
“I still scratch my head. I can’t figure any of this out. You’re the first Mexican heavyweight champ, right? You got to go see the president of Mexico, right?
What other motivation do you need than the responsibility you have to the Mexican people – and really everybody? Because this went way beyond being the first Mexican champ.
“This transcended borders and reached people across the world. He made people believe. He was the feel-good story of the year. I did everything I could to convince him to look at the bigger picture and leave a legacy, but not everybody has the same drive or the same priorities.”
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