Deontay Wilder reacted to Andy Ruiz Jr’s social media post from today by saying he’s still open to facing the chubby former unified heavyweight champion, but what he and his dad are asking for is “unreasonable.”
Wilder says that when Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) is “serious,” he can look him up. Ruiz Jr seemed to get things twisted in his social media post today, coming across like it was the former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay (43-2-1, 42 KOs) that was pushing for a fight rather than the other way around.
Ruiz Jr’s dad, Andy Sr, rejected the 30% offer from Wilder, saying that they wanted 50%, which ground the talks to a halt.
Two weeks later, Ruiz emerged on social media, telling Wilder not to be mad at him and talking about wanting to “humble” him. What Ruiz didn’t mention is whether he was willing to accept the offer that was on the table.
If Ruiz wants the fight, he will need to agree or move on and see who he can find that will give him a similar payday that he would have gotten if he’d agreed to the offer.
Wilder isn’t waiting around forever for Ruiz to get serious about the fight, so he will need to move quickly if he wants to take advantage of this offer.
“Big boy, we don’t have to go back & forth with all this talking. I know what the deal is and the real is, and you know what the deal is and the real is as well. The only people that is mad is you guys,” said Deontay Wilder on social media about Andy Ruiz Jr.
“I didn’t call you. You called us. I didn’t harass you about fighting. You guys harassed us about fighting. We weren’t in no desperate need of fighting. You guys were in desperate need of fighting, or you all wouldn’t ever have called out the phone in the first place.”
Ruiz is definitely the one that needs this fight, because he’s frittered his career away by not fighting and just enjoying the money from his two fights with Joshua.
“You called my brother Malik desperately trying to get a fight on,” said Wilder. “You got in touch with me, saw me at the fights, and desperately tried to fight me. I said, ‘Hey, cool, let’s make it happen.
“We’ll get back to you.’ We got back with you guys with my team, with your team, and now it’s time to put it all together.
“Who acting scared? It isn’t me because what you all talk about is unreasonable; let’s face it, it is what it is. So when you’re serious, holla at me. Until then, do what you’re doing, bro. You got a lot of weight to lose, man. You can talk that talk, but only a few walk that walk. Do you know what I mean?
“So if you want to see what a knockout feels like to get your brain splattered, holla at me, bro. I ain’t far,” said Wilder.
Ruiz Jr could have gotten the trilogy fight that he wants against Anthony Joshua if he’d followed the advice that his British promoter Eddie Hearn gave him back in 2020 when he told him to put together three good solid wins over high-caliber heavyweights and he’d get the opportunity.
Instead of heeding Hearn’s instructions for a path to a third fight with AJ, Ruiz took the lazy, slack-jaw approach by calling Joshua out, asking him to give him another chance.
On top of that, instead of fighting the A-level guys that he needed to earn the Joshua trilogy, he took two years off before fighting Chris Arreola. He then fought 43-year-old Luis Ortiz and came close to losing to him.