If you lost money on Saturday’s big World heavyweight title fight, blame it on Andy Ruiz ‘partying too much’.
Ruiz went into the first defense of his four World heavyweight crowns weighing 45 pounds more than his opponent. This was despite Anthony Joshua, his 6ft 6in British conqueror, towering 4 inches above him with an 8in longer reach.
These advantages had made no difference in the first Joshua-Ruiz fight at Madison Square Garden in June. The taller Brit was then the heavily favored defending champion. FanDuel, for example were offering +1200 on underdog Ruiz. New Jersey sports betting rival DraftKings meanwhile, was taking bets on the heavily-back Brit at -3335.
It was reported that 96% of the punters money in that fight was laid on the Champion despite the odds. When Joshua inexplicably lost his IBF, WBA, WBO, and IBO titles, his backers went down with him.
Joshua turned the tables in Saturday’s return ‘Battle in the Dunes’ in Saudi Arabia. There was no knock-out, but he comprehensively out-boxed Ruiz to get an overwhelming unanimous points victory. And again the punters took a beating.
Most money line bets were laid on Ruiz
Joshua once more was the favorite of the New Jersey sportsbooks albeit by a much narrower margin. Ahead of the Saudi fight the majority had him at around -260as against +215 for Ruiz. The other difference in the betting this time was that the punters were laying most of their money on Ruiz.
Last Thursday, FanDuel’s Kevin Hennessy told Casino.org that 91 percent of wagers – including a $10,000 bet at +210 – had been placed on Ruiz.
On Friday Stephen Miraglia of DraftKings, told Casino.org that his sportsbook had already taken three times more handle on Ruiz than they did in June. It was at around 64% of the total handle on the fight.
So yes, once more it was the sports bookmakers who came out smiling and the punters who were left frowning. The wagerer who lost $10 000 would probably have been especially upset when he heard rueful Ruiz’s startling post-fight confession.
The clearly overweight Mexican-American told the media that in celebrating his victory he had been partying too much and for too long.
In the fight he won, he had weighed 268 lbs to Joshua’s 247. In the fight the lost the official pre- fight scale had him at 283.7lb to the challenger’s 237lbs.
“I don’t want to say that three months of partying affected me but, to tell the truth, it did,” Ruiz admitted
Ruiz: “Being overweight held me back”
“Being overweight,” he said, noting his slower hand-speed, “definitely held me back. I was only getting in one or two punches. Normally I go for three or four. It got the best of me.
“Being overweight, I couldn’t perform to my best. I just wasn’t fluid, I couldn’t move the way that I wanted to move.
“I should have trained harder; I should have listened to my coaches more.”If I hadn’t put on all of this weight, I would have been faster and thrown more. I hurt him but I let him survive.
“There’s no excuse besides me not training hard, and putting on all this weight.”I know what I didn’t do, and what I should have done,”
Ruiz apologized both to his father and his trainer Manny Robles, and repeated his request for a third fight with Joshua.
“I would prepare a lot more. Being champion for the first time wasn’t easy,” he said.
“I’ll train harder for this one; take it more seriously. There is a lot of responsibility being the heavyweight champion of the world. The partying got the best of me.”
