clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

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

Joshua defends his titles against Ruiz on June 1.

Anthony Joshua - Media Day Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Wil Esco is an assistant editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2014.

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.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for the Bad Left Hook Daily Roundup newsletter!

A daily roundup of all your global boxing news from Bad Left Hook