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JUNE 2000
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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THE QUIET MAN
He's the low-profile heavyweight ranked No. 1 by two santioning bodies, the man Lennox Lewis gave up a title over, and the opponent for Evander Holyfield in this month's vacant WBA championship match. GRAHAM HOUSTON talks to a rare boxing good guy, who has recieved a bad press |
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IS HE READY?: can fights against lesser opponents such as Steve Pannell have prepared Ruiz for Holyfield?
- Get Big Pic For some time now, the boxing media has been saying unflattering things about
John Ruiz, the heavyweight from Massachusetts who is ranked No. 1 contender by
both the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association. His ranking is undeserved, the writers say. And a 19-second knockout defeat
against David Tua four years ago is brought up every time Ruiz’s name is
mentioned. Only in America. Somehow Grant’s inept challenge has
reflected badly on Lewis, who, like it or not, proved himself to be No. 1. STEVE
FARHOOD reports from MSG From the Great John L. to Iron Mike and President Ike,
heavyweights have befuddled us. Their rhythms are random, their psyches fragile,
their needs and insecurities unique. Sometimes they infuriate us, other times
they wow us. But most times they leave us muttering: "Go figure." From a psychological perspective, Michael Grant seemed to make
the quantum leap from athlete to fighter last November, when he rose from two
knockdowns to stop Andrew Golota. The body-beautiful’s game was still
occasionally ugly, but among boxing’s big men, championship heart and a strong
right-hand wallop can compensate for technical flaws. That’s why Grant was
31-0 and ranked as the leading available contender by the unindicted few. Lennox Lewis was not as easily impressed. Analysing Grant with
the eye of a chess player, the undisputed (alphabets be damned!) heavyweight
champion sat ringside at the Golota fight and declared: "He’s next."
This is why it’s good to be king: The title fight was made more easily than
most, and after five minutes and 53 seconds of one-sided action at Madison
Square Garden, during which Grant fought like a Golden Glover making his
sub-novice debut, the still-champion nodded knowingly. He had gone and figured exactly right. What the cognoscenti figured was that a long fight favoured
Grant. In almost every one of the 27-year-old challenger’s major bouts, he had
rallied in the deep stretch, when most oversized heavyweights are sucking oxygen
and squinting for the finish line. For a heavily muscled fighter, Grant was
remarkably relaxed in the ring, and his superior stamina had surfaced in wins
over Al Cole (KO10), Obed Sullivan (KO9), Ahmad Abdin (KO10), Lou Savarese
(W10), and Golota (KO10). Asked for a prediction before the Lewis fight, Grant
smiled. "I don’t make predictions," he said. "But the 10th
round has been awful good to me." So why did he fight as if needing a knockout in the first 10
seconds? Grant’s decision to bum-rush Lewis and bowl him over was
strategic suicide. What in Lewis’s history suggested he might be vulnerable to
such unsophisticated tactics? More pointedly, Grant might not have been capable
of fighting any other way. When 17,324 fans fill boxing’s most famous arena .
. . and Michael Buffer roars "Let’s get ready to rum-buuuuul!" . . .
and Boyz II Men takes forever to sing the National Anthem . . . and the eyes of
the world burn right through you on step one of your ring walk . . . Well, the
moment has been known to swallow a man whole. Even a man who stands 6ft 7ins and scales 250lbs. From the initial press conference, through public workouts and
conference calls, to the endless fight-week festivities, including the final
press gathering and the weigh-in, Grant seemed self-assured. But as the opening
bell grew closer, a transformation took place. Boxing writer Thomas Hauser, who spent the entire day of the
fight with Grant for houseofboxing.com, described the dressing-room atmosphere. "It seemed Michael was not emotionally ready to go into
the ring," Hauser told me. "I didn’t sense any of the energy that
was going to be necessary for him to do what he had to do. The locker room was
eerily quiet. You don’t have to scream and yell and have loud music playing
that gives everyone a headache, but there were about a dozen people in the room
and this was too calm. "Someone in that position might fight a very passive
fight. Michael didn’t do that. He came out aggressively, which was the plan.
But he broke down in terms of his technique. Why? I don’t know. The only thing
I can tell you is Michael’s first fight in Madison Square Garden was against
Olian Alexander [in 1996], and he looked terrible. Afterward, he said fighting
in the big arena had gotten to him." Wrote Hauser on the website: "As Grant began to loosen
up, for the first time since he’d entered the room, his face seemed to
transform into the face of a fighter. His eyes grew more focused, angry, and
intense. "Then the look receded." The solemnity of Grant and his cornerman-trainer Don Turner,
who’s always ready with a chuckle, resembled a pallbearer-contrasted sharply
with the opposite corner. Upon climbing through the ropes, Lewis began dancing
to his ring-walk music, the theme from "The Good, The Bad, And The
Ugly". (Naz has nothing to worry about.) The chilling stare-down was
available when called upon, but he seemed in no hurry to intimidate. Maybe he
was just relieved to be matched with someone other than Evander Holyfield. The contrast was not lost on Lewis’s trainer, Emanuel
Steward. "When we were in the dressing rooms and they put the TV camera on
Grant’s side," Steward said, "they looked so serious. And when they
came into the ring, Don Turner’s eyes were 100% on Lennox Ñ in fear. It was
an amazing transformation from what we had seen at the press conference only
three days before." Go figure. Actually, it wasn’t hard to figure at all Ñ but
only in hindsight. At the bell, Grant, 250lbs (17st 12lbs), from Norristown,
Pennsylvania, shot from his corner as Marvin Hagler had against Thomas Hearns.
But his timing and balance were dreadful Ñ he reached for Lewis, overextending
his punches Ñ and the threat of a nuclear shootout dissipated within seconds. "I was shocked and very surprised when he came at
me," said Lewis, 247lbs, introduced as from East London, England.
"Most of the time I could see it when he was winding up. I just held my
position so I could get a good shot." Grant did manage to connect with a hook-right combination,
cutting Lewis’s bottom lip. But his next two blows were wild misses. Quickly
settling into counterpunching mode, Lewis looked to answer with straight rights.
But as Grant stumbled forward, he repeatedly dropped his head. Calling on the
experience that his opponent lacked, Lewis adjusted splendidly, coming under,
instead of over, with his right. His first uppercut set up an overhand right
that caught the challenger high on the head. Only 85 seconds in, Grant was
stretched on the canvas. "It was stupidity on my part," Grant said.
"Lennox is a smart guy. He dropped his hands and said: ÔCome on. Come
after my head right now.’ It was a smart move because I was trying to take his
head off. I came after him and he took a half a step back and he did what he
did. "I just got caught with a shot, one of those equilibrium
shots, and it stunned me for the rest of the knockdowns he had." There would be a quartet of knockdowns in all, and the second
and fourth were the products of illegal blows. Knockdown number two came after
referee Arthur Mercante Jr. (USA) ordered the fighters to break. Lewis landed a
right and Grant fell into the ropes, prompting a count. With 12 seconds remaining, Lewis, 36-1-1 (28 KOs), hammered
Grant, 31-1 (22 KOs), with a thunderous overhand right. The challenger’s right
leg folded awkwardly, and not a soul in the building thought he was going to
pick himself up. But with the help of the ropes, he did just that. The bell rang
before Lewis could administer further torture. "I was surprised that his
corner actually sent him out for the second round," said Lewis. In his dressing room instructions, Mercante, who was miked,
had told Lewis: "There’s only one thing I want to say: Try not to pull
his head into you." But with Grant bending over in the clinches, Lewis
couldn’t help himself. After ducking under Grant’s desperate power shots
earlier in the second, the champion braced Grant’s neck with his left forearm
and drove a savage uppercut into his chin. Boom! Grant’s head bounced off the
canvas, and while Mercante counted, he never tolled the fateful 10. There was no
need. Perhaps the instruction to protect yourself at all times
supersedes the rule about holding and hitting. Whatever the case, Team Grant
elected not to make an issue of the infractions, and we were spared another
post-fight controversy. The time of the KO was two minutes, 53 seconds of round two.
The judges were Melvina Lathan (USA), Steve Weisfeld (USA), and Anek Hongtongkam
(Thailand). Interestingly, all four officials were chosen by the New York State
Athletic Commission, without input from the sanctioning bodies (the IBF and WBC).
In the immediate past, the alphabets had selected two of the four officials. For the umpteenth time, Lewis benefited from an opponent’s
meltdown. (Is there some sort of Jamaican voodoo at work here?) But unlike his
eyesore fights with Henry Akinwande and Oliver McCall, the champion capitalised
in emphatic fashion, featuring the type of power surge the public thirsts for.
That Lewis is the best heavyweight in the world is no longer an issue. But given
the 24 largely unsatisfying rounds vs. Holyfield, the timing of this blowout was
essential. As a pay-per-view attraction, Lewis is marginal, and another backward
step would have been devastating. (As it was, Lewis-Grant brought only 350,000
PPV buys, a disappointing figure given the stakes of the bout and the perceived
quality of the challenger.) Still, it’s Lewis’s lot that he’s never to receive full
credit, at least on this side of the drink. After describing Grant as "an
amateur", New York Post columnist Wally Matthews wrote: "But in the
process, [Lewis] showed once again that he is only a somewhat more advanced
amateur, a tremendously powerful one to be sure, but an amateur just the same.
Lewis’s first effort as undisputed heavyweight champion was exciting, but
unscientific and even unprofessional." Go figure. Regardless, don’t expect ringing applause when Lewis rejects
the challenges of the most deserving contender, David Tua (too short), and the
most marketable, Mike Tyson (washed-up). In the meantime comes a well-deserved
gimme against the earnest Frans Botha on 15 July in London. If Lewis can’t win, he might as well lay back and enjoy the
victories. At age 34, he figures to reign as long as he pleases Ñ which in
heavyweight-speak means he’ll probably lose to Botha. Befuddle on, boys, befuddle on. But Ruiz, a 28-year-old from the Boston suburb of Chelsea but with ancestral
roots in Puerto Rico, believes that on 10 June, when he meets Evander Holyfield
for the vacant WBA title at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, he can make the knockers
eat their words by pulling off the upset and thus become the first Latino
heavyweight champ. Ruiz is not one to go making outrageous statements, and in this respect his
nickname of The Quiet Man is well-deserved. But, as we talked over the phone,
there was no mistaking the determination Ñ quiet determination, of course Ñ
that he will bring into the ring on 10 June. He asks, for instance, how anyone can dispute his No. 1 rating, which he says
he earned by fighting regularly and being willing to take on all-comers, when
Michael Grant, hailed by the Home Box Office TV network as the people’s number
one contender, proved to be so out of his league against Lennox Lewis. "I knew it wouldn’t go two rounds," Ruiz said of the Lewis-Grant
fight. "They hyped up Michael Grant when really he was just nothing but a B
fighter. I hate to say it, but HBO did a great job in hyping Michael Grant up,
knowing that this guy hadn’t fought anybody. "I definitely would have done the same thing Lennox did. Lennox did a
great job. He did what he does best. He jabbed, he threw his right hand. As
people saw on television, Michael Grant was not what HBO or his promoters were
making him to be." But now it is Ruiz’s turn to step into the big-fight spotlight, How does it
feel to be taking on an acclaimed warrior such as Holyfield? "Evander’s always been a great champion, you can’t take that away
from him," Ruiz said. "He’s a legend. But the one thing I feel is
that every champion needs to know when to call it quits, because there’s
always someone behind them, always a young fighter that takes them out of their
career Ñ and that’s when they become retired. I look at it as a great
opportunity for myself. Even though I haven’t had the so-called promotional
things that Grant has, through HBO, one thing’s for sure, I know that I can go
out there and fight Holyfield and beat Holyfield. "The best thing to do with Holyfield is to have a great jab. Michael
Moorer proved it. A good jab, keeping him busy trying to dodge those jabs,
making him think about the jabs. It just throws him off-course. Throwing a lot
of combinations. Make him work. He’ll pick certain times when to explode, and
all of a sudden he’s back in the same routine of not throwing too many punches
himself. "I’m looking at it that he’s just another fighter. When he was in my
position, just starting out, he had to go through the same things. To be a great
fighter, you have to go out there and fight. I’m hoping he comes in top
condition and comes out the best he ever fought, because I feel that the better
the fighter is, the better I become. "I think it’ll be a crowd-pleasing fight because you’ve got
Holyfield who does nuthin’ but come in, and then you’ve got myself, that
most of my fights is nuthin’ but come in and fight. I always train myself for
12 hard rounds, but one thing’s for sure, I’m gonna try to end the fight
early. But the most important thing is the jab: jabs, right hands, side to side,
just keeping him wondering what am I gonna throw next. A lot of combinations,
moving. Things that he hates to see." The loss to Tua is completely behind him, he says. "It just
happened," he says of that night. "I blame myself for not being
mentally ready. I would never change that fight, because that turned around my
life, brought everything into focus where I know what I want to do and I know
what I want. And one thing I do want to be is the next heavyweight champion. A
great one, too. "I think it [the Tua fight] was just one of those things where I came
out Ñ I’ve always been a slow starter as people saw in the earlier fights
before that Ñ and I guess he came out quickly and happened to catch me. "After that, for sure I always wanted a rematch but it seems like they
know it was a lucky thing that happened and don’t want to ruin it by having
another fight with myself. "I know for sure that after I beat Holyfield, Tua’s going to come out
after me because everyone wants to fight the champion. I definitely will fight
him again. I’m better than that, and I’m going to prove it. "But, hey, things happen and you have to go on. And that’s exactly
what I did. I went on and became the No. 1 contender in both organisations. And
I’m trying to prove a point, that I am a great fighter." As for the negative comments, he said: "I do get angry. I’m a human
being. I’ve got some emotions. But there’s one thing, these same people were
hyping Grant up to be No. 1. In the Lewis fight, Grant didn’t show anything.
And these guys were on him like he was the next god or something. And then they
turn around and say I shouldn’t be No. 1. Where have they been? Who have they
been studying?" Apart from the Tua setback, which was his last defeat, Ruiz has lost two
other bouts, both on split decisions. One of these to Danell Nicholson, then
being guided by Emanuel Steward, at Foxwoods casino resort, Connecticut, in
August 1994. "All I can say is, if you don’t knock a guy out, you leave it up to
the judges, and the judges weren’t with me that night," Ruiz said.
"I was on him for 12 hard rounds, I was the aggressor and throwing most of
the punches. I don’t know what fight they were watching." The other loss came in his 15th bout, when he was boxing in the cruiserweight
division, to Sergei Kobozev, the world-class Russian who mysteriously
disappeared and was later found to have been murdered. He disputes that defeat,
too. And although Ruiz knows what it is like to be caught early, he has been on
the other side, too: the fighter who inflicts sudden defeat. Despite a tendency
to start slowly, he has scored 11 one-round knockouts, the most notable being
his demolition of the well-regarded heavyweight, Ray Anis. This was a 22-second
blowout in June 1997, over a fighter who went the full 10 rounds with Michael
Grant. "As I said before, the worst thing I used to do was to take the first
round off," Ruiz said. "Now I become more aggressive in that first
round and just keep going. That was the whole change in my boxing style [after
the Tua fight]." He is not one of those super-big heavyweight but big enough at 6ft 2ins and
230lbs (16st 6lbs). As a leading amateur light-heavyweight, Ruiz boxed in the
1991 world championships in Sydney, where he won his first two bouts. He lost to
Jeremy Williams, who went on to become an erratic pro heavyweight, in the U.S.
Olympic trials. "He’s the only guy [from the U.S.] to beat Torsten May
[the German Olympic gold medallist]," said Ruiz’s manager, Norman Stone,
49, who was part of the three-way phone conversation. For a time Ruiz was promoted by Londoner Frank Maloney and had six wins in
Britain, including a fourth-round knockout over the future British champion
Julius Francis at Bristol in May 1994. Who could have thought watching the
undercard bout that night that, six years later, Francis would be sharing the
ring with Mike Tyson while Ruiz would be matched against another living legend,
Evander Holyfield? Francis had won six in a row, but he was down twice in the fourth round
against Ruiz, the second time to be counted out. "I caught him with a body shot and I guess he didn’t want to go no
more," Ruiz said. He says he liked the British people, was always made to
feel welcome, but felt neglected because of all the attention lavished on Lewis. Now Ruiz is promoted by Don King, whose influence obviously was not a
hindrance in the matter of moving up the ratings. "You hear good and bad
things about Don King, but I’ve got nothing bad to say about him," Stone
said. Ruiz weighed only 2041/2lbs (14st 81/2lbs) for the fight with Julius Francis
and was giving away 211/2lbs, but he has built himself into a full-sized
heavyweight with a strength-training routine supervised by a personal trainer.
"We try not to become a weight-lifter but an athlete," he said. Ruiz was a sparmate of Lewis while in the Maloney stable and says he has
nothing against the heavyweight champ personally, even good-humouredly shrugging
off Lewis’s "Johnny Louise" comments. "I think he has a crush
on me," Ruiz said. "Someone should tell him I’m married, with two
kids." As for fighting Lewis, he said: "I sparred with him before, I know that
his whole fight is based on a so-called jab and a right hand. There’s lots of
ways to avoid that [the right], and it seems he’ll panic if he can’t get to
you with his right hand." He said he always felt he boxed well with Lewis in the gym, which he said he
found "kinda weird, him being a great champion at the time and myself just
coming in as a sparring partner". Ruiz added: "With Lennox, I don’t feel I’ve got nuthin’ to prove
to him because he knows what I’m about because of the way we sparred when I
was with them during [training] camp. He knows that I can actually beat him, for
sure. He doesn’t want to fight me. Like anybody else, he’ll take the best
fight for him. Grant was the classic. He knew it. As he said in the interviews,
styles make fights. "I’m ready to fight anybody who stands in the way of my goals. I’m
not in this because of the money, I want to be the next great champion and I’m
willing to fight anybody to become that. "For one thing, after you win the championship you have to honour the
belt, you have to honour the mandatory contenders and stuff like that. I’ll
fight who’s out there." But Hearns’s great nights were inevitably followed by the disappointing
ones and the shakily achieved victories as he fought on when there were many who
believed he should have retired years earlier. British fans saw a pale shadow of the once-wonderful fighter when Hearns
scored a desultory points win over Nate Miller at Manchester in April of last
year, when the Hit Man picked up the International Boxing Organisation cruiser
title. Emanuel Steward blamed Miller’s defensive tactics. As for the slurred
speech of Hearns, it is Steward’s contention that a long-time nose injury is
the cause. Steward knows how much Hearns loves to fight. The millionaire father of four
finds it hard to walk away. But Steward also knows that enough is enough. Hearns’s
wife, Renee, is totally against him fighting again, Steward believes. He told the Detroit Free Press that Hearns wanted to go out for the third
round and fight on one good leg against Grant. "That’s what the man is made of," he said. "That’s why we
have to think real hard about where he goes from here." Where Hearns should go from here, I believe, is retirement. He apparently has
the opportunity to get into promoting with the Detroit casino that backed his
fight with Grant. This would allow him to stay in the sport. If Hearns does decide to call it a day he will leave with a record of 59
wins, five losses and a draw (46 KOs). And the loss to Grant he can dismiss as a
fluke. All things considered, it would be best, surely, if he now makes his exit,
even on such a sorry note as the affair with Grant. He will, after all, always
have the memories of his glorious nights of years past. So will we. For further coverage of the Hit Man’s thriller-chiller career and of his
final fight, see the May issue of Boxing Monthly. |
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