![]() HE GOT THE fight by messaging Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn, on Instagram. ![]() "Everybody would me, 'You haven't fought nobody like Joshua.' But in reality, he hadn't fought anybody like me." "Everybody was just laughing at me," Ruiz says. He throws those five words - heavyweight champion of the world - around the room repeatedly and almost at random, as if repetition will make them more believable. This guy, this one with the bouncy gut and the quick feet, is the heavyweight champion of the world and the first Mexican-American heavyweight champion of the world. If expressions were words, his would say, "What do you think of me now? " - followed by the plural form of a 12-letter word you're better off imagining than reading. His perfectly round face is stuck in a half-grin of permanent satisfaction, like one of Raphael's cherubs at 29. Ruiz sits at a table, his title belts propped up by 12-packs and displayed in front of him, and listens to every question, in English and Spanish, with his head tilted slightly back and his chin forward, as if he's a little hard of hearing. There are police everywhere: inside the room, outside the entrance, parked in cars down the street. Just look at him now, walking past the pallets of Stella Artois and Bud Light and Rolling Rock on his way to a media conference in a beer distributor's warehouse in his hometown of Imperial, California. No, it's the pure, uncut surprise of it, the way this 268-pound guy went from being a near-total unknown to most of America - six fights removed from a bout at the Masonic Temple in Detroit - to dominating previously undefeated, 6-foot-6, 247-pound Anthony Joshua in one of the biggest upsets in the history of boxing. So the beauty of Ruiz is not limited to the obvious, that the current heavyweight champion of the world looks like a guy who wears a T-shirt in the swimming pool. We've made an enemy of surprise to be surprised is to be disconnected, and there is no worse indictment. We know everything before it happens, and if we don't, we claim we did. Nobody appears out of nowhere anymore, right? We're too savvy for surprises. And so - no, it will not get better than this moment, this glorious and unexpected moment, the moment Andy Ruiz Jr. Soon he will begin to detect the bittersweet pull of expectation: Yeah, but can he do it again? He will be smothered so thoroughly in his small hometown, by both love and greed, that it will begin to feel like a box. But there will be more people wanting him to tell his story, and more who want to read or hear or see it. He will be recognized on more streets in more cities. Yes, this large, round man will get richer, and he will get more famous. 'He's the people's champion': Inside Andy Ruiz Jr.'s new title-winner life You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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