Former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr (34-2, 22 KOs) had to get up off the deck after getting shockingly dropped hard to go on to win a 12 round unanimous decision against 40-year-old Chris ‘The Nightmare’ Arreola (38-7-1, 33 KOs) on Saturday night at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
The scores were 117-110, 118-109, 118-109. Luckily for Ruiz, Arreola’s work rate slowed down to a trickle after the third round, which allowed Andy to cruise to a wide decision.
The performance by Ruiz showed clearly that he’s still the vulnerable fighter that he’d been before he beat Anthony Joshua in an upset in 2019.
Ruiz looked decent tonight, but not at the level to beat Joshua, Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, Dillian Whyte or maybe not even good enough to beat Joseph Parker.
It would be a wise idea for Ruiz’s management to spoon-feed him weaker heavyweights until he gets another payday title shot against Joshua or Fury because he’s too flawed.
Here are the early results from tonight’s Ruiz vs. Arreola undercard:
- In a bloody fight, Abel Ramos (27-4-2, 21 KOs) proved to be too much for former WBC lightweight champion Omar ‘Panterita’ Figueroa (28-2-1, 19 KOs) in stopping him in the sixth round in a WBA welterweight title eliminator. The bout was stopped due to Figueroa, 31, spitting up blood in the sixth.
- Junior middleweight Sebastian ‘The Towering Inferno’ Fundora (17-0-1, 12 KOs) defeated Jorge Cota (30-5, 27 KOs) in the fourth round. The lanky 6’5 1/2″ Fundora hurt Cota with a series of punches in the fourth, causing the referee Ray Corona to step in and halt the bout. The time of the stoppage was at 2:35 of the fourth.
- Welterweight Jesus Ramirez Jr (16-0, 14 KOs) defeated Javier ‘El Intocable’ Molina (22-4, 9 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision. The scores were 97-92, 99-90, 99-90. Molina lost a point in the seventh round for hitting on the break.
- Erislandy Lara (28-3-3, 16 KOs) absolutely crushed #8 WBA Thomas Lamanna (30-5-1, 12 KOs) by a first-round knockout to win the vacant WBA World middleweight strap. Lara, 38, hit LaManna with a straight left hand to the head that laid him out on the canvas on his back. The referee stopped the fight right away without giving a count, which made sense because LaManna was in bad shape. The time of the stoppage was at 1:20. There was nothing complicated about what Lara did in the fight, as he was throwing nothing but left hands, and there wasn’t anything LaManna could do to stop them. Lara didn’t even need to jab.
- Eduardo Ramirez (25-2-3 KOs stopped Isaac Avelar (17-3, 10 KOs) by a third-round knockout to win the interim WBA featherweight title. The time of the stoppage was 1:16 in round three. Ramirez dropped Avelar with a right to the head in the third. Avelar got back up and the fight was stopped moments later after he was sent into the ropes.
