Deontay Wilder’s trainer and former opponent Malik Scott has given his opinion on the biggest weakness of Andy Ruiz Jr ahead of their upcoming fight in 2023, pointing out his indiscipline to be the primary detrimental factor.
Ruiz has a lot of bad habits: Deontay Wilder’s Trainer Malik Scott
Ruiz, a former unified heavyweight world champion has come up with three different trainers in his last three bouts. In the rematch against Anthony Joshua, he was with Manny Robles, in the fight against Chris Arreola, he did it with Eddy Reynoso and recently he went up with Alfredo Osuna for the fight with Luis Ortiz.
With Robles, Ruiz delivered one of the biggest upsets in boxing history by knocking out Anthony Joshua and claiming the WBO, IBF, and WBA heavyweight belts in a bout that wasn’t even the Brit’s initial opponent.
Ruiz thus became the first Mexican to win the unified heavyweight titles and gave AJ the first loss in his professional career. After this, Ruíz fell into indiscipline, neglected his physical condition, and ended up gaining almost 20 pounds in six months.
‘The Destroyer’ then lost the belts in a rematch with Joshua in December 2019 and stayed away from boxing until May 2021. Led by Eddy Reynoso and the Canelo Team, Ruiztransformed his physique and did great preparation for the fight where he won over Chris Arreola by unanimous decision.
Malik Scott, who is the current trainer of ‘The Bronze Bomber’ believes the bad habits of Ruiz has caused him to switch coaches so many times, and opines it will be what costs him the fight against Wilder.
“He has a lot of bad habits,” Scott said in an interview with ES NEWS, “That’s why he goes to so many camps with different coaches. My responsibility is to look for flaws in his preparation or fights.”
“The Joshua fight is not his best performance,” Scott went on, “It was his biggest win for him, but it was far from his best fight. I really liked what he did in between the fight with Ortiz.”
It was recently announced that both Andy and Wilder will play elimination fights in search of defining the official WBC challenger to Tyson Fury’s title. Ruiz defeated Luis Ortiz by unanimous decision in September, while Wilder returned and knocked out Robert Helenius in the first round.
Ruiz has yet to win the WBC belt, while Wilder seemed to focus on the championships held by Oleksandr Usyk. However, Scott acknowledged that they wait for the fight to arrive in 2023.
“It’s not a secret that this fight will be next year,” Scott concluded, “But the truth is that in the end I want all those strong fights with Usyk or with AJ.”
