Former world heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz is looking for a new trainer since dumping his trainer Manny Robles after losing the rematch with Anthony Joshua last December.
Ruiz shocked the world when he stopped British unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in June of 2019 at Madison Square Garden in New York. He was a late replacement for Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller who failed several drug tests and had to be pulled from the fight.
Rather than cancel his US debut, Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn opted to look for a replacement, and they figured Andy Ruiz would be a good opponent.
Little did they know that the chubby Mexican-American from California was in shape and ready before getting the call and he shocked Joshua with his power and hand speed stopping him in the seventh round.
After he won the titles to become the first Mexican-American heavyweight champion of the world, Ruiz went on to enjoy the spoils and he didn’t take his training camp seriously for the rematch and his title reign was short lived.
Boxing fans called Ruiz the Mexican Buster Douglas. Just like Douglas ballooned in weight and enjoyed his new found, Ruiz did the same and packed on 16 pounds and weighed 284 pounds in his rematch with Joshua. Douglas and Ruiz both pulled off massive upsets, and lost the titles in their very next fight because they didn’t train seriously.
Trainer Teddy Atlas has shown interest in training Andy Ruiz, but former two-division world champion Timothy Bradley who trained under Atlas advises Ruiz to be serious and disciplined because Atlas is a strict, no-nonsense type of guy.
“Andy Ruiz gotta be disciplined if he gonna work with Atlas,” Tim Bradley told ESNEWS. “I’m just gonna let you know that right now, Atlas is a different monster of trainer. Atlas gonna make you feel like you don’t know nothing about boxing. He is going to take you from ground zero and he is really gonna change all your fundamentals, he is going to get you right. It’s going to test him mentally, it’s definitely going to test him physically and Atlas is gonna want all your attention. He [Ruiz] needs to know that. If you are not 100 percent, he don’t wanna be involved. If you are not doing things right, he ain’t gonna want to be involved. He’s a good trainer, but he is a disciplinarian, he will discipline you. That’s probably what Andy Ruiz needs, he needs that discipline and he will get it from Atlas.”
Ruiz trained under Freddie Roach for the majority of his early boxing career before moving to Manny Robles. Teddy Atlas would be a good fit because as Bradley suggests he is a disciplinarian, an that is something Ruiz needs to get back to the top.
