How Top Boxers React to Fat Shaming - inc Andy Ruiz Jr

Boxing can be a brutal sport, careers are made and broken with the throw of a punch, and jibes are traded at a press conference that can be forgotten as soon as the final bell is rung.

It’s part pantomime in the buildup to a fight, but recently, some of the insults have gone beyond what would normally be expected. Fighters have to hype a big fight, but some of the hype has gone beyond what is reasonable. For instance, Chris Eubank Jr. was not happy after Liam Smith’s bizarre press conference suggestion he was homosexual. Smith later shocked the world by beating Eubank, but the son of the British legend of the same name came back for revenge later in 2023.

Whilst one would imagine sexuality is off the table when it comes to pre-match insults, a fighter’s weight is not. Many fighters have been subjected to taunts about their weight and have reacted in different ways. Some of the criticism has not been without basis, even if it is reprehensible, whilst others have been subjected to taunts despite not actually being fat.

Here are three boxers subjected to fat shaming and how they dealt with it.

Andy Ruiz Jr

One of the most famous instances of fat shaming in boxing came after Andy Ruiz Jr lost his rematch with Anthony Joshua. Ruiz Jr, who had shocked the world earlier in his career by beating the previously undefeated Joshua, arrived for his rematch looking hugely out of shape. He was well beaten, leading to a worldwide fat shaming moment.

Ruiz Jr. approached the situation as many would; he hit the gym and changed his diet. He admitted that he hadn’t hit a big diet, that he had just been eating well. That fits with the common practice for weight loss outside the ring– a good weight loss program promotes a balanced diet rather than one that cuts out entire food groups. It was an approach that worked for Ruiz Jr. – for his next fight, he dropped two stone from the Joshua fight, proving that dietary balance is the way forward when it comes to weight loss.

Ebanie Bridges
Australian fighter Ebanie Bridges was subjected to fat shaming ahead of her fight with Shannon O’Connell at the end of last year. Bridges, who turns up to weigh-ins wearing lingerie, was verbally attacked by her opponents on multiple occasions, including being accused of eating too many meat pies in the run-up to their fight. Bridges had previously defended Shannon Courtenay when she was also fat shamed, and unlike the Ruiz Jr situation, there was little basis for the verbal attack.

How did Bridges deal with the situation? In the ring, like a solid boxer would always want to. She stopped her opponent in the eighth to retain her IBF bantamweight world title and afterward accused her of being a disrespectful bully. Sometimes, the best way to deal with fat shaming in boxing is by coming out and throwing punches. She also suggested she might go back onto her meat pie diet after the fight, jokingly it is assumed, given the income she also makes from OnlyFans.

Mike Tyson

Nobody could accuse Mike Tyson of being fat during his illustrious career – the ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’ was an unstoppable force that smashed his way through the heavyweight division in the late eighties and early nineties. Since then, he’s become a huge figure outside of the ring, not just metaphorically, but at one time, literally.

Tyson has admitted to demolishing 10,000 calories in a single sitting and was the subject of fat shaming from Roy Jones Jr ahead of their ‘Lockdown Knockdown’ encounter. That led to a prolonged stint of weight loss for Tyson – but how did he do it? Like Ruiz Jr, he changed his diet, but he did take a bigger step – instead of a simple reduction in his intake, he switched to a vegan diet. That can still form part of a balanced weight loss program as it isn’t depriving your body of a certain food group as such. Vegans can still get the nutrients and protein they need, just not from red meat.

Conclusion
Tyson, Ruiz Jr, and Bridges are not the only fighters to have been fat shamed. Kell Brook faced the same treatment from fans after stepping away from boxing. They all deal with it in different ways; hitting the gym, changing up their diet, or just fighting through the other side.