‘Mom didn’t raise me to trash-talk’
Andy Ruiz Jr tells Matt Dickinson in Riyadh why he will not stoop to the lows of past champion boxers.
ANDY RUIZ JR walks into the ring for a public workout in the midst of a gleaming office complex in Riyadh, wearing a beanie hat that makes him look like a garden gnome. The smile of a man just happy to be alive, never mind heavyweight champion of the world, beams out even when one fan shouts out: ‘‘I’ve got some Snickers’ bars for you’’.
It is hard to know if that reference to the chocolate bar that Ruiz indulges in a little too often is intended as a wind-up, but the MexicanAmerican takes it in good heart. With his soft voice and gentle demeanour, a refusal seemingly to say a bad word about anyone or anything, he seems such an unusually genial and therefore endearing champion boxer.
It is only when Manny Robles, his trainer, pulls out the pads and Ruiz starts smashing his fists into them at dazzling speed that it makes sense that he should fit into the lineage of men famed for their violence.
Suddenly, in that blur of hands, we recall again how Ruiz could fell Anthony Joshua to win his belts and why he seems so confident of doing it again in Riyadh today in ‘‘The Clash on the Dunes’’.
‘‘I don’t know if I am his bogeyman, but I think his style was just perfect for me,’’ he says. ‘‘And I think it will be the same.’’
Ruiz may appear an unlikely champion in a world of ripped torsos and male braggadocio, but he should never be mistaken for an imposter. He has been fighting all his life.
His father, who runs his own property development business, introduced his son to boxing at the age of six. In San Diego, California, Ruiz was fighting other kids by seven.
‘‘I lost too,’’ he recalls. ‘‘I weighed more than all the other seven-year-olds so my dad brought this 12-year-old for me to fight. It was a hell of a fight. I still have that on video tape.
‘‘My whole life I’ve been fighting big guys. I think that is where I got the experience. I just thank my dad for always pushing me. Even when I didn’t want to box any more he would drag me out of bed and say, ‘Come on motherf . . . . . , let’s train because you will do something’.
‘‘The main thing he would tell me is not to be scared, not to fear nobody because we are all flesh and blood. I just go in there fearless.’’
Whether or not it is down to appearances, Ruiz – with only one career defeat, a narrow points loss to Kiwi fighter Joseph Parker in 2016 – was underestimated by too many, including Joshua, going into their first meeting in June in New York. The British champion had been preparing to fight Jarrell Miller until the American failed a drugs test.
Ruiz was drafted in and, even after being hit to the canvas in the third round, stayed smart to outbox a man who towers over him. Joshua has since been working with shorter sparring partners, losing weight to assist his speed and mobility, determined to come back much improved.
‘‘I know he is going to try to box me around,’’ Ruiz says. ‘‘That is why he lost some weight. He will try to keep me away with the jab but that’s exactly what we have been practising for; being small, being more slick, applying pressure, throwing combinations and being first to the punch.’’
In particular, the Ruiz camp believe that Joshua will struggle, despite all his preparation, to fight the impulse to open up whenever it does become a brawl. ‘‘I want him to be mad and swinging in the ring,’’ Ruiz said. ‘‘I want him to have that attitude because I will be calm.’’
It is a clash of shapes, sizes and styles but not personalities. Perhaps the only niggle between the 30-year-old opponents was after Ruiz accused Joshua of giving up in their first bout. The British fighter had been knocked down four times and his trainer, Rob McCracken, would say that his man suffered a concussion from the third round.
‘‘I am pretty sure he was mad at me,’’ Ruiz says. ‘‘But that is what I felt in my heart, he spat his mouthpiece out and quit. He was waiting too long to fight on.’’
It is the nearest Ruiz comes to trash-talking. ‘‘I know the fans want to see that but that’s not how my mom raised me,’’ he says.
Family matters to Ruiz, who has enjoyed the spoils of victory. He sits down wearing a chunky diamond ring and watch so dazzling, you almost need sunglasses to tell the time.
‘‘My maddest purchase is probably the cars – two types of G-Wagons, the brand new RollsRoyce and a Lamborghini truck, an SUV. I also bought my mom and dad a truck.
‘‘But my spending has not taken away my competitive edge. There is so much I have to accomplish and prove.’’
With a taste for the high life, Ruiz, who will fight at the same weight despite seeming thinner, needed little persuasion to come to Saudi Arabia. Both fighters have had to defend taking the riches from a regime with such a questionable human rights record.
‘‘I haven’t known much about Amnesty because I’ve spent most of my time in Finchley just training,’’ Joshua said. ‘‘There’s issues in
Finchley, you know.’’
He will have to summon a better defence if he is going to avenge his shock defeat to Ruiz, with today’s winner set for a mega-fight with American hitman Deontay Wilder.
‘‘Me and Wilder, we are good friends,’’ Ruiz smiles. ‘‘We know what is in the plan.’’
THE TIMES
Teenage tennis sensation Coco Gauff describes herself as ‘‘just a kid who has some pretty big dreams’’ on her Instagram account. But it’s difficult to imagine an athlete, whether kid or adult, who realised more big dreams than Gauff did in 2019.
She will open the 2020 season at the ASB Classic in Auckland, two weeks before the Australian Open.
Just 15, she announced herself to the sporting world this year at Wimbledon, beating her childhood idol, Venus Williams, in the first round and toppling a succession of higher-ranked players to reach the fourth round.
At Washington’s Citi Open, she won the first doubles title of her career in early August, just days after meeting her role model, former first lady Michelle Obama.
In late August, Gauff faced the US Open’s defending champion, Naomi Osaka, in a primetime, sold-out match at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the world’s biggest tennis venue. Though she lost in straight sets, she rebounded in October by winning her first WTA singles title, in Linz, Austria.
By season’s end, the hard-hitting, steely nerved Gauff boasted nearly 615,000 Instagram followers and a career-high world ranking of 68 after opening the year at No 685. And she achieved all this with her feet planted firmly on the ground and her focus intact.
In a telephone interview this week, Gauff reflected on her season’s defining moments – some of which, she said, she still can’t quite believe – and spoke about her plans for 2020, confirming that they include a return to Washington’s Citi Open, which will be contested from August 1-9.
‘‘Last year I won my first WTA title in singles or doubles in Washington, and I also got to meet Michelle Obama, which was really cool as well,’’ Gauff said, explaining that the two spoke for nearly an hour about the importance of following one’s own path and handling pressure. ‘‘My family and I had a good time in DC, so it wasn’t hard to make the decision to come back.’’
Having Gauff in the 2019 Citi Open field on the heels of her breakout performance at Wimbledon energised Washington sports’ fans. Crowds packed the stands for her qualifying matches and returned in droves for her singles campaign, which ended with a first-round loss, and her triumphant doubles run with Caty McNally.
‘‘Coco-mania’’ was even more palpable at the US Open three weeks later.
‘‘Coming out of Wimbledon, she was the tennis story,’’ said Chris Widmaier, the Open’s managing director of communications. ‘‘It’s not every day that a young tennis player turns into water-cooler talk, but people who followed the sport only tangentially knew about Coco Gauff and were excited about her.’’
Gauff’s US Open ended with a 6-3, 6-0 loss to Osaka that was made memorable by the players’ heartfelt exchange afterward, with Osaka, then 21, insisting that Gauff join her in the victor’s customary on-court interview so the tearful teen could be further cheered by a crowd that had roared her on throughout.
It was the tournament’s shining moment. And it endures with Gauff, too.
‘‘I really didn’t want to take the moment from her, because she had reached the round of 16 and it was her moment,’’ Gauff said. ‘‘But she gave me such sweet words, and I think she meant it.’’
Looking back on the tears she shed, Gauff said it wasn’t so much the defeat that upset her – Osaka was, after all, the world No 1 – but the fact that the match was over so quickly, in just 65 minutes, before she found her footing.
‘‘The whole match I felt I just was adjusting,’’ Gauff said from her home in Delray Beach, Florida, where she is training during the off-season.
She had adjusted so well to the mania that erupted at Wimbledon. In the heady days that followed, she met actor and musician Jaden Smith, FaceTimed with his mother, actress Jada Pinkett
Smith, and got social media shout-outs from Samuel L Jackson and Snoop Dogg.
But none of this upended her focus. Said Gauff: ‘‘I was hungry for more – not more of the attention, but more of the winning. I wanted to improve my ranking. After that, every time I accomplished a goal, I would set a new goal, so I always had something to reach for.’’
Gauff was greeted like a rock star at the US Open, where fans chanted her name when she stepped out to 14,000-seat Louis Armstrong Stadium for her firstround match.
Playing Osaka in 23,771-seat Ashe Stadium, however, proved entirely different.
‘‘I was a little intimidated — I’ve watched so many matches on it,’’ Gauff explained. ‘‘And it’s a lot bigger when you’re inside it.’’
She was also taken aback, at least at the outset, by the power of Osaka’s strokes, which seemed even harder and heavier than Williams’ blasts on grass.
‘‘I think it was all about trusting my shots,’’ Gauff said, reflecting on the lessons. ‘‘It wasn’t anything technical that I was doing; I just felt like I was adjusting the whole time.’’
Today, Gauff said she still can’t quite believe she has a WTA singles title, calling it ‘‘kind of crazy.’’ But she is enjoying her three-month offseason and has caught up on her online schooling and elevated her game with an eye toward a busier tournament schedule in 2020.
‘‘We’ve been working a lot on changing directions, stepping into the court and pretty much everything,’’ said Gauff, who turns 16 in March. In August, she will return to Washington as the ideal marquee player, in the view of Mark Ein, the venture capitalist who manages the Citi Open, to help celebrate its 10th anniversary. ‘‘Having a player back like Coco, who certainly represents a big part of the future of tennis, is a perfect fit.’’
‘‘I was hungry for more – not more of the attention, but more of the winning. I wanted to improve my ranking. After that, every time I accomplished a goal, I would set a new goal, so I always had something to reach for.’’ Coco Gauff
The Washington Post