I don’t know whether this is actual sport science, but I remember watching some MMA analysts (ex-fighters) suggest that the really heavy guys who carry around a lot of muscle tire easily. Their muscles use up the oxygen more quickly.
Joshua’s never been known to have serious problems with conditioning as I recall, so it’s unusual that he would tire. But clearly, Joshua looked tired – and he looked a lot more tired after he got rocked by Ruiz’s right hand to the ear.
Tedd Atlas made the comment that getting hit behind the ear leads some fighters to appear punch drunk the rest of the fight. It can be a punch that fighters never fully recover from, as it screws with their equilibrium. That might have been what happened to Joshua.
Boxing, especially if one makes a professional career out of it, is a brutal sport. I don’t have the data to support it, but I’d wager that it’s more dangerous than mixed martial arts. When a fighter gets rocked in MMA, the fight is usually over moments later. In boxing, they continue fighting. And those 10 oz gloves? They’re actually more dangerous because they inflict more head trauma. The gloves weren’t invented to protect the head; they were invented to protect knuckles and to prevent lacerations. In so doing, they made repetitive blows to the head much more damaging.
My observation is that head trauma in boxing is a problem for the most successful fighters as a result of the number of fights. Successful doesn’t necessarily mean winning, there are perennial contenders as well. It’s not simply the number of fights either, they can get hit a lot more in training than they will in real fights. There is a belief that wearing headgear in training makes the problem worse by allowing the fighters take a lot more shots to the head. Just as in football it’s not just the major impacts that matter, it’s the numerous smaller ones also, cumulatively worse because there’s no indication of injury after each one.
I hope the sport can take a better look at the health of the boxers in terms of how many times they’ve been hit in the head and require more stringent examination before being allowed to fight. But not much will get in the way of a fighter determined to continue his career. There are a lot of boxing venues worldwide and eventually a boxer can find one that will let him fight.
ETA: I didn’t catch the size of the gloves in this fight, but they didn’t look like the 16 oz. gloves heavyweights traditionally used. That small amount of additional padding might help a little with the shots Ruiz throws to the side of the head (and he is really effective with those), but in terms of concussion it makes little if any difference.
His stamina is questioned a lot (on boxing forums etc), but prior to Sat night it was perhaps not based on a great deal of evidence. I think the fact that heavily muscled boxers often aren’t built for twelve like you mention, and then AJ did in fact gas out dramatically against WK mid rounds - this was the one data point people siezed upon to confirm what they thought they knew.
The Klitscho fight was a war, though, with v heavy exchanges - aside from that fight he hadn’t manifested serious stamina issues, but it hadn’t been tested much, either. This fight, though - something very wrong with him as he looked tired after round 2 and Ruiz was hardly forcing the pace. I think two fights with serious lapses in stamina are enough to say he does have issues in this department. (He definitely goes in heavy when he thinks he can finish someone, puts himself deep into the red zone that he can’t quickly recover from)
That was a horrible, horrible loss though. I agree that a loss shouldn’t be the end of the world, and can in some circumstances be a learning experience and turning point to greater things, but there’s no positives to be taken here. He just got starched by Andy Ruiz in the absolute physical prime of his (AJ’s) career.
The more I analyze the fight, I don’t think the loss is quite as horrible as it seemed at the time. It’s obviously horrible in terms of how it affects Joshua’s trajectory and it blew his payday, but it wasn’t like Joshua was dominated from the opening bell. It seems that Joshua simply wasn’t prepared for Ruiz’s fighting style. Joshua is used to stalking his opponents and setting up his combinations, but Ruiz almost from the start, was the one moving around the ring and backing Joshua up. Joshua looked a little cautious and confused. He started measuring and timing Ruiz and landed a knockdown. His mistake was that he dropped his guard when trying to finish Ruiz off. He never recovered.
It was just one fight. Joe Louis was badly beaten by Max Schmeling early in his career, didn’t end his career. Lennox Lewis was knocked out by Oliver ‘Cry Baby’ McCall, didn’t end his career. We’ll see what happens with both of these guys.
Just one fight, but Ruiz’s style seemed particularly well suited to Joshua. Ruiz will be training too, and likely will be in better shape for the rematch.
On an unrelated note, I’d never heard of Ruiz prior to this fight but having seen some interviews and such since then, he comes off as a particularly likeable guy.
This could be it. The fighter who is best prepared to add something new to their game will have the advantage. But often in a rematch it just picks up where the previous fight left off. Not a good idea for Joshua.
Not only that, but he started boxing when he was six, had a hundred amateur fights, and was 30-1 as a professional. I’m not saying he’s Joe Frazier, but the guy had a serious boxing career. Whoever picked him as the replacement for the fight made a major mistake.
Ruiz showed a lot of heart and that he could take a punch. And he out-boxed the heavyweight champion of the world. It’s a great story.
Joshua is a really, really good boxer. He has a good technique and he clearly possesses knockout power. He was actually the first one to score a knockdown. You could tell he struggled to deal with Ruiz’s style in the first couple of rounds, but he started to get a sense for timing and space and scored a knockdown in the 3rd. Sensing he had hurt Ruiz, Joshua instinctively, predictably went in close to Ruiz to try and finish the fight.
And that’s where things went south. Ruiz was stunned but he wasn’t hurt, and he just started swinging with fury. Ruiz has very, very good hand speed - no doubt deceptive due to his pudgy physique. Ruiz is also accurate, and once he tagged Joshua with the right to the ear, Joshua was screwed.
Joshua can learn from this fight. If Joshua weren’t an accomplished Boxer, I wouldn’t give him a chance, but he’s a smart fighter. He can add things to his repertoire. It really depends on his mentality. Does Joshua have the tenacity and determination to come back from a loss like this? Does he have the mental toughness? We have no idea?
