John Ruiz is a name etched in boxing history thanks to legendary fights with the likes of Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones Jr.
The former WBA World Heavyweight Champion competed throughout the 1990s and 2000s having grown up between Puerto Rico and Chelsea, Massachusetts.
He was a solid amateur who fought at the 1991 World Championships as a light-heavyweight and narrowly fell short of making the Olympic team in 1992, so instead turned professional and won his first 14 contests.
His most notable early fight came in 1996 when he appeared on HBO’s “Night of the Young Heavyweights” and was devastatingly knocked out inside the first 20 seconds by David Tua, who went on to challenge Lennox Lewis for the unified heavyweight title in 2000.
Ruiz came back strong and won 10 of his next 11 fights by stoppage and climbed up the WBA rankings as a result, which led him to fight Evander Holyfield for the vacant belt. He lost rather controversially the first time in August 2000, but exacted revenge in the rematch in March the next year with a unanimous points win that made him the first Latino heavyweight titlist.
A third and final match with Holyfield ended in a draw before Ruiz attempted to defend his belt against Roy Jones Jr who had come up through the weights and managed to beat Ruiz to make him the first man in over 100 years to hold a belt at both middleweight and then heavyweight.
Despite that, when asked who was the best he faced overall by The Ring Magazine, he went with ‘The Real Deal.’
“Holyfield. He had the big name and always went to war. He brought everything but the kitchen sink into the ring to use. He knew how to win and did everything to win.”
Ruiz’s last fight was a stoppage loss to David Haye in England in April 2010 which sent him into retirement with a record of 44-9-1.
