Andy Ruiz Jr. has a lot of questions he needs to answer in his latest comeback against Jarrell Miller on August 3rd. This fight is a toss-up between these two heavy-set fighters, and the weight could play a factor.
Ruiz’s Inactivity Raises Questions
Former unified heavyweight champion Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) is returning after two years out of the ring, looking to ramp up for another world title shot, or so he says. This is just his third fight since his loss to Anthony Joshua, and he makes periodic returns, saying things but then disappearing.
If Miller (26-1-1, 22 KOs) is victorious in this match, it could be the end of the career for Ruiz because he’s not going to want to fight for small dough, starting from the bottom against the younger heavyweights. Unless His Excellency is willing to keep using Miller for his career, this could be it for him.
“I think weight matters for both of these guys. Jarrell was huge in his last fight. He didn’t have much of a training camp. He said that. He was in the 330s,” said Chris Mannix to DAZN Boxing, talking about the weight of Andy Ruiz Jr. and Jarrell Miller for their fight on August 3rd.
Ruiz looks in reasonable shape for him, but we’ll have to see. Being inactive like he has, it will do a number on his cardio. You don’t return after two years out of the ring and expect to be the same fighter you were the last time you fought.
“I think he’s got to come in 310 or 315. I know it sounds crazy. I think he fought Mariuz Wach around 280, and that was the lowest he’s been. Between 305 and 315 is kind of an optimal weight for a guy the size of Jarrell Miller.”
Miller’s Edge
Miller fought well for the first six rounds of his last fight against Daniel Dubois, and he weighed 333 lbs for that match. It wasn’t much of a case of Miller gassing out, but rather Dubois getting motivated and going on the attack.
“The same with Andy Ruiz. He was 280 when he fought AJ [in the rematch], and that was a mistake. You want him to cut down to 265 to 270-ish range for him. We’ll see on the weigh-in day which one of these guys took it the most seriously coming into this fight. I’m picking Jarrell.”
Ruiz looks slimmer than he did for his rematch with Joshua in December 2019, but he’s older, and the two years of inactivity can’t have been good for him. Andy hasn’t shown much motivation to keep his career going, and it’s easy to understand why.
He made $10 million for his two fights against Joshua, and he likely was paid well for his two headliners against Chris Arreola and Luis Ortiz. With that kind of money, it’s got to be a daily battle for Ruiz to pull himself away from his life of leisure to train.
“I question his [Ruiz] chin, too, coming into this fight. I watched him against Luis Ortiz in that recent fight [in September 2022]. He was taking shots, and he wasn’t taking them as well as he did against you [Joseph Parker] and certainly against Anthony Joshua,” said Mannix.
Ortiz outboxed Ruiz in almost every round of their fight in September 2022, and the only reason he lost was that he was dropped three times. The difference in skills between the two fighters was huge, as the Cuban Ortiz showed much more ability than Ruiz, even at 43.
Ruiz’s Decline
“What made Andy great was he was willing to take those shots, and he’d fire off eight punches. The combination punching was his MO, and I didn’t see that in the Luis Ortiz fight. I wonder if we’re going to see that against Jarrell Miller,” said Mannix.
The version we saw of Jarrell Miller against Daniel Dubois last December should be too much for Ruiz, as long his punch resistance hasn’t been impaired from that knockout loss. That was a grueling fight for the 36-year-old Miller, and there’s no way of knowing how that will affect him going into his match against Ruiz.
“Jarrell Miller, even though he got knocked out in his last fight, at his best, he has a pretty good chin. At his best, he’s going to throw a lot of punches. If the two versions of the guys I’ve seen show up, I think Jarrell is better equipped to get a win,” said Mannix.
Miller looked better in his December loss to Daniel Dubois than Ruiz has in his last three fights. The last time Ruiz performed well was in his first fight against Joshua on June 1, 2019, and even then, he was dropped.
Ruiz isn’t the fighter he was back in 2019 because he’s been enjoying the millions he made and showing no interest in keeping his career going. Ruiz’s only two fights have been against 43-year-old Luis Ortiz and 40-year-old Chris Arreola.
