Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz is furious about Andy Ruiz Jr. choosing to fight Tyrone Spong next on July 16th rather than facing him. Former unified heavyweight champion Ruiz will be fighting the unbeaten Spong (14-0, 13 KOs) on Triller PPV this summer in a large 80,000-seat stadium at the Plaza de toros Calafia, Mexicali, Mexico.
This is the second time that Ruiz has chosen to bypass Ortiz, even though it’s a fight that he badly needs for him to get a world title shot. Rather than fight Ortiz last year, Ruiz fought Chris Arreola last May, winning a lackluster 12-round decision on Fox Sports PPV.
Like the Spong fight, Ruiz vs. Arreola was hardly a pay-per-view worthy match-up, but the organizers took advantage of Andy’s surge in popularity after his upset win over Anthony Joshua in 2019.
Ortiz, 43, was looking forward to taking on Ruiz because the ramifications of the fight would have been huge with the winner moving up the rankings to potentially get a crack at one of the belts.
“He’s a coward, a coward down the line,” Ortiz said to Elnuevoherald of Andy Ruiz Jr. choosing to fight Spong. “He could have chosen a real boxer, a renowned rival.
“He knew how badly I wanted to fight him, but he decided to take an easy route against a Kickboxer, someone he’s going to overpower without much trouble. I repeat, he is a coward.”
“Ruiz led the fans to believe that a fight with me as possible, but we already see the exit he took,” said Ortiz. “He already said once that he could fight me and he accepted a tune-up fight.”
Ruiz wants another title shot, but he’s been slow to take the fights that he needs to put himself in a position to challenge one of the champions. After Ruiz lost his title to Anthony Joshua in December 2019, he stayed out of the ring for a year and a half before facing Chris Arreola
Apparently, Triller believes the Ruiz-Spong fight is big enough to not only sell on pay-per-view but also to stick it in a huge 80,000-seat stadium.
Perhaps the Mexican fans have heard of Spong because he’s an unknown to the American boxing fans and many of them view this as another soft touch for the 32-year-old Ruiz.
It would be a good idea for Ortiz to move on because it seems clear that Ruiz has no interest in fighting him.
“Now comes something worse than a Tune-up. A fight is coming that nobody is interested in and that is useless in his career as a boxer,” said Ortiz about Ruiz’s fight against second-tier fighter Spong.
Last month on March 24th, Ruiz Jr asked his followers on Twitter if they would be interested in seeing him face Ortiz next, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. But instead of facing Ortiz, Ruiz chose to fight Spong.
“How many of my fans would like to see this fight happen?” said Ruiz on Twitter.
