Joshua regains against Ruiz in rematch
The much-anticipated rematch heavyweight main event in Saudi Arabia played out like a broken record as Anthony Joshua was able to recapture the WBA, WBO, and IBF belts from Andy Ruiz Jr. in a low-risk taken main event.
The final scorecards for this contest reflected the one-way action in the ring with scores of 118-110 x 2 and 118-109 all in favor Joshua who wins the belts back from Ruiz, who won them back in June from him.
Revenge. 📸#RuizJoshua2 pic.twitter.com/CXwSCRrSDs
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) December 7, 2019
This fight started out like the first one. That was with Joshua keeping his distance on the outside and keeping Ruiz away with the jab. Make for most uninteresting boxing on the DAZN broadcast from a cold and rain-laden night in Saudi Arabia. It was apparent that Joshua was going to keep Ruiz away from getting inside by any means necessary.
The smaller Joshua made extensive use of his movement to play keep away from Ruiz early, and Ruiz wasn’t able to land anything of significance.
This process continued for the second half of the fight, as well. At this point, Joshua was banking rounds doing the same to make sure that Ruiz would have to contend with the jab of Joshua. Dull but was effective throughout.
The championship rounds showed a little more effectiveness by Ruiz and he was able to fight through said jab and try to land inside. Ruiz has gotten a few shots in pockets and was looking to try to land the big shot but was unable to catch up to Joshua.
Much was made about Ruiz coming in fifteen pounds heavier at the weigh-in the day before, which to many skeptics didn’t play a factor in this fight at all. It did, however, make for Joshua a target to land the occasional body shot, especially in the opening rounds.
This was mostly a dull bout with the more accomplished Brit staying away from Ruiz’s power and out-boxing him with the jab setting it al up. In the end, Joshua is now back where he was in June, when Ruiz scored one of the stunning upsets in heavyweight history by decking Joshua three times in seventh round TKO.
Marquis Johns is a unknown humorist and avid boxing fan. His love for the sweet science goes back to when matches were 15 rounds and has been covering fights since closed-circuit pay-per-views. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth is not only a quote by Mike Tyson, it's also a pretty good reminder to keep your guard up.
