Joshua v Ruiz 2

[Kirkland Laing]

The winner is obligated to face the WBO and IBF mandatory, it's already a given that the winner will dump the WBO (Haymon doesn't deal with them regardless) allowing Uysk to fight for the vacant title in February. Whoever wins has to face Pulev (IBF) next or dump that too.

Joshua can't be frozen out as Hearn will have the WBO title regardless and all the top heavyweights... barring Wilder, Fury and Ruiz of course. However, should Joshua lose he's going to need a year or so to ease back regardless.

If he manages to lose twice in a row to the Michelin Man his commercial worth is going to take a gigantic nosedive. There's nothing like two embarrassing defeats in a row to have bandwagon fans deserting en masse and leaving a massively popular fighter suddenly not so popular. He's going to go from Wembley to the O2 and the only chance he's going to get to fight for what the public consider the real title is if Fury beats Wilder twice in a row. He's made lots of money and when you add the fact that he's comfortable financially to the fact that he'll be mentally fucked by the double loss it's a legitimate question as to whether he'll ever be able to get himself back to the top. It definitely won't happen anytime soon.

Should Ruiz win, a fight vs Wilder is THE dream heavyweight matchup America has been craving, the demographic couldn't be better. If Joshua loses he wont have to worry about that side of the street for a year or two regardless.

However, if he does decide to continue, "downgrade" to the 02 and gets a couple of comeback wins his blip against Buster will swiftly be written off. The greatest fighters in history have had a bogey man.

Haymon will definitely make Wilder against Ruiz at some point no matter whether Ruiz wins or loses on Saturday. If he wins it'll definitely boost his commercial worth regardless of whatever alphabet belts he's left holding. Joshua can make a comeback from losing twice against Ruiz but that's a hell of a blip. If he can't beat Ruiz would you fancy him against Usyk? Really difficult to see him getting back to the top level again. A fight against Fury could make a lot of money but less so if Fury gets sparked by Wilder again.

For what it's worth Fury was robbed against Wilder not sparked. However, Wilder just did terrible numbers against Ortiz - 7000 tickets (less than half Canelo-Kov gate) and 175-225k PPV - "Haymon" did his absolute bollocks if the purses were correct ($27 million). For all his beloved hardcore fanship Wilder's American audience simply don't buy his fights... watch but don't buy. Ruiz loses to AJ that fight is worth relative peanuts, especially in comparison to anything Joshua or Fury can do.

Ruiz is stylistically so different to Uysk the comparison is basically irrelevant. It's a boring old cliche but styles makes fights really is apt in this instance. Even if Ruiz irons AJ out again I don't see him ever beating Uysk or Fury.

Haymon seems to be convinced that Wilder turns into a massive PPV moneyspinner at some point with all the massive offers to Joshua for fights and so on. I just don't understand why he was paying Wilder such a gigantic purse for the Ortiz fight though. I mean Wilder is signed to him, Haymon can arrange a smaller purse with PPV upside that doesn't leave him massively out of pocket. If the Fury rematch doesn't sell much more than the Ortiz rematch then what is Haymon going to do then, pay a gigantic fee to get Joshua? Who says Joshua fighting Wilder, even in America, is going to turn Wilder into a massive PPV earner? I can't see Joshua or Hearn ever agreeing to fight Wilder in America now anyway. Maybe as a guaranteed rematch after the first fight in Britain. Ruiz will get a Wilder fight at some point assuming he continues and Wilder keeps winning but it'll be more of a keep busy fight for Wilder.

I don't think Joshua would fight Usyk any differently to the way he fought Ruiz on Saturday. I think that's it for Joshua now, safety first and keep it at range. Like Klitschko Mark II. He's going to fight like that every fight and it's going to be awful to watch. Somebody said nobody complains when Mayweather fights safety first but it's different from Mayweather doing it in two ways. Firstly Joshua is nowhere near as skilled as Mayweather. If Joshua fights a Fury in decent nick then it'll look a lot different to fighting that shortarse tub of lard on Saturday. Secondly this is the heavyweights. People want to see proper fights and knockouts, not some gunshy giant jabbing away at somebody smaller for twelve rounds. It's boring and the fans turn off and don't watch and you can't blame them. The last thing we need is another Klitschko. Hopefully Usyk makes Joshua look stupid.