Anthony Joshua: Andy Ruiz Jr. a smarter fighter than Jarrell Miller

With just a few short weeks left until Anthony Joshua’s American debut against replacement opponent Andy Ruiz Jr., streaming live on DAZN, the unified titleholder takes some time to talk to Sky Sports about his thoughts on the match-up as Ruiz stands in for Jarrell Miller.

“Ruiz doesn’t weigh as much, he is a lot quicker than Miller and I think he uses punch variety and punch selection a lot better than Miller does.

”His punch output is a lot lower but he is more accurate with his punches. I have to be better with my defence, a lot tighter and be smarter against someone like Ruiz.

“Even though he is not as big and doesn’t work as hard to a certain degree, he is a lot smarter.”

Joshua would continue by saying that he’s not overly concerned about taking on a substitute opponent because he’s laser-focused and therefore prepared for anything to happen. He also says that fighters who don’t prepare for situations like this wind up becoming distracted when they do occur.

Ruiz, (32-1, 21 KOs) will come into this fight as a considerable underdog against Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs), but he insists that he’s coming to win while most fans and media members expect him to go all-out, even if it happens to be in a losing effort. But if Ruiz happens to pull off the massive upset, the heavyweight landscape changes dramatically.