The way Manny Robles tells it, he saw it coming. Now the former trainer of former heavyweight world champion Andy Ruiz Jr, Robles has spoken in at least a little detail regarding how hard it was training, or trying to train, Ruiz ahead of the second fight with Anthony Joshua.
Speaking with ESPN, Robles, who refused to lay into his former charge or disrespect Ruiz (as some disgruntled trainers would possibly behave after having been fired) said Ruiz was “not listening to me” during camp for the December 7 return fight with Joshua. Robles said he is grateful for the time he spent working with Ruiz and that he himself will now “keep moving forward.”
“I’ve seen it coming, I’ll be honest with you,” Robles said of the split with Ruiz. “Andy was just doing whatever the hell he wanted to do. The dad, obviously with him being the manager, he just had no control over his son. None of us had control of him, for that matter. So I just saw it coming, it wasn’t going to work because he wasn’t listening. Fortunately for me, Andy took the blame on himself and didn’t sit there like a majority of fighters and blame the coach.”
Indeed, Ruiz apologized to Robles after losing that wide decision to Joshua. Clearly out of shape, Ruiz blamed three straight months of partying for the defeat, not his then trainer. So the big question now is this: who will Ruiz hire as his new trainer? Another good question is, will Ruiz listen to his new boss (well, the trainer should be the boss over the fighter, in the gym at least)?
Ruiz, if he’s serious about regaining the world titles he pretty much gave back to Joshua having shown up weighing in excess of 283 pounds, needs a strict disciplinarian to train him, that’s a given. At the still-young age of 30, Ruiz, 33-2(22) has youth on his side and he can come again, if he really wants it.
Credit to Robles for not putting the boot in here, as he could so easily have done.