Nigerian-born British heavyweight boxer, Anthony Olaseni Oluwafemi Joshua and his rival, Andy Ruiz Jnr of Mexico exchanged verbal taunts face-to-face on Friday, as they met for the weigh-in ceremony ahead of their rematch on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, megasportsarena.com reports.
Joshua showed off a much leaner and athletic physique, as he stepped up his regimented drills in his bid to regain his titles, going into the fight at 247.8lbs, while trying so hard this time to avoid repeats of cynical talk by observers mocking him for having a bodybuilder’s shape.
In reaction, Ruiz said he is not concerned by a leaner ‘AJ’ and declared that he will also weigh-in similar than he was in their first bout on June 1, which he scaled 268lbs, but is now looking a lot trimmer and faster ahead of rematch.
For their last three bouts respectively, Ruiz was 268lbs against ‘AJ’, 259lbs versus Alexander Dimitrenko and 252lbs when he took on Kevin Johnson, while Joshua’s scales were 248lbs against Ruiz, 245lbs when he took on Alexander Povetkin and 242lbs for the Joseph Parker fight.
Borth boxers were told they must not to wear shorts – or expose their knees to be more precise – in Saudi Arabia, so they had long trunks on as the hit at the scales in Diriyah.
Heading into the event, Ruiz received strong words from Hashim Rahman, the last fighter to topple a British heavyweight, when he stunned Lennox Lewis several years back, and he used his experience to warn the current holder that victory in the first fight was actually the easy part.
It was 18 years ago that the 20-1 underdog Rahman caused one of the biggest upsets in boxing history when he knocked out then reigning world heavyweight champ, Lewis in the fifth round of their infamous encounter in Brakpan, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Back then, it was rumoured that Lewis was already looking ahead to a potential mega-bucks unification fight with Mike Tyson and his training camp had been interrupted by filming a cameo appearance in George Clooney’s movie, Ocean’s Eleven.
He paid the price that night in South Africa, as Rahman took the WBC and IBF heavyweight titles, but the history maker recalls how Lewis then got his revenge within seven months in their epic rematch at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, USA.
A rejuvenated, refocused Lewis stormed in from his training camp high in Poconos Mountains with necessary adjustments and produced a near-perfect display at Mandalay Bay, where he sent Rahman packing in the fourth to reassume his position atop the heavyweight division.
Nearly two decades on, parallels have been drawn between Lewis’ Rahman incident and the fate which befell Joshua at the hands of Ruiz in New York six months back. Joshua, a huge favourite, was stunned by the rank outsider and his entire reputation has taken a hit as a result.
Just like Lewis did, Joshua has decided to dive straight into the rematch and one man who will be in the crowd at the purpose-built Diriyah Arena is Rahman (The Rock), who has an undercard heavyweight fight with Michael Hunter to face same night.
Rahman said: “The mindset does change because you’ve now got somebody coming in trying to take it away from you now. It’s frankly easier when you want to take something. Now you’ve got to defend something, you’ve got to stand your ground. But he is champion and I haven’t seen any slacking in training. If he lands his punches you are going to see the same again.”
