By Ron Widelec
20.09 - Recently I had heard someone make a comment about the current WBA heavyweight champion, referring to him as the worst heavyweight champion ever. This, of course, is John Ruiz who attained these belts through three matches with Evander Holyfield.
This got me think about whether or not this was really the case. Is John Ruiz the worst heavyweight champion of all time? First, the issue of whether John Ruiz is a champion must be considered. John Ruiz does hold the WBA belt, making him a de jure champion, however his championship stature is dubious at best.
Ruiz's journey to the belt has been less than convincing. The belt that he holds, for the time being anyway, was not gained through victory over the true champion, Lennox Lewis. Lewis, who was the unified and linear champ, was stripped by the WBA for not fighting it's number one contender, none other than John Ruiz, who somehow made his way to the top of the WBA's asinine rankings. In stead Lewis elected to make a much more challenging defense verses Mike Grant, who most at the time felt was the next best heavyweight. Lewis, of course, was right to pass on the undeserving Ruiz bout, and fight Grant in a highly anticipated fight. Lewis easily disposed of the gigantic Grant in a few short rounds. For his troubles the WBA stripped him of a title, but in now way diminished his champion title. From this point on the WBA title has been separate from the linear title, and has found its way into the most unexpected and unlikely of owners.
This is where John Ruiz comes in to picture. As the WBA's number one contender, to is now vacant title, Ruiz was given the opportunity to face the next highest contender for the belt. This opponent was none other than the future hall of famer and all time great Evander Holyfield. There was a time when Evander Holyfield would have made short work of a fighter as inept at John Ruiz, but this aging warrior is merely a shell of his former prowess. Two steps slower than he used to be, slow punching and lethargic to react, Holyfield could not beat Ruiz. However, even in this geriatric state, he was able to fight 3 very even fights with the much younger Ruiz, who is equally as lethargic even at this younger age.
Each of these bouts were close and controversial, the results being, one fight for Holyfield, one for Ruiz, and one final draw, allowing Ruiz to hold his belt. However most feel that Holyfield had won the last fight, which was ruled a draw. Hence, Ruiz's legitimacy as a champion can be questioned from several angles. One, the belt that he holds is not part of the linear title. Two, he never fought the real titleholder to gain the belt, facing another contender for a vacant title. Three, the contender that he did face is an aging former champ who is a bit over the hill. Four, questions remain about whether or not he truly even beat Holyfield to retain the title. Not to mention his unimpressive and somewhat shocking rise to the number one contender rank, which was undeserved.
But, for the purpose of this question let us ASSUME for the moment that Ruiz is a champion in some loose sense of the word. We can now get back to the original question, is Ruiz the worst Champion ever. This is no doubt that he is a weak champion. With trivial skills, bad footwork, weak punching, and questionable stamina Ruiz is not considered by most, myself included, to be a serious contender. Ruiz's top ten ranking by many experts and fans are based solely on his title. In fact he is not a top ten fight, not by a long shot. It would not take a great deal of thought to name ten fighters who could decisively and regularly beat Ruiz. The list would not only be the A level fighters of the division, but also many of the fighters of the B ranks.
It might look something like this Lewis, both Klitschkos, Tyson, Byrd, Oquendo, Johnson, Rahman, McCline, Whitaker, Tua, Mercer, McCall, Botha, Bean, and a few others. In fact Ruiz is probably not even within the top 20 heavyweights in the world right now, regardless of the title. At best he is 15th or so. I cannot think of a time when there has been a heavyweight champion that was this low in actual rankings. There have been many times when a there were champs that many have not been top five fighters, but to be outside of the top 20 is unheard of, until now perhaps. It is for this reason that Ruiz is one of the worst, if not the single worst, heavyweight champion of all time.
