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Mike CoppingerESPN
Former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr.’s fight against Tyrone Spong, which Triller Fight Club announced would take place July 16 in Mexico City, will not proceed as planned.
Ruiz, ESPN’s No. 5 heavyweight, apparently signed a contract to fight Luis Ortiz in a PBC heavyweight bout in late summer before he signed to meet Spong, sources told ESPN. Triller had announced the Ruiz-Spong bout on Wednesday.
Now, Ruiz (34-2, 22 KOs) will move forward with the summer matchup against Ortiz, sources said, a bout years in the making.
“We are working amicably with PBC to make sure Ruiz honors his obligations to both parties,” Triller Fight Club president David Tetreault told ESPN. “Had we known PBC intended to fight him prior, we would have never chosen this date.
“We enjoy a good relationship with PBC and we are currently working to identify an optimal date for rescheduling the fight. The date Triller lands on will be in collaboration with PBC and their calendar.”
Ruiz, 32, became the first heavyweight champion of Mexican descent when he shocked Anthony Joshua via seventh-round stoppage in ESPN’s 2019 Upset of the Year. Six months later, Joshua regained his three heavyweight titles with a unanimous-decision victory over Ruiz in Saudi Arabia.
Ruiz was admittedly not in shape when he fought Joshua in the rematch. He weighed a career-high 283.5 pounds and was lethargic during the fight, in stark contrast to the June 2019 bout, in which he weighed 268 and consistently beat Joshua to the punch with his lightning-quick hands.
Ruiz has fought just once since the rematch with Joshua, a May 2021 decision win over Chris Arreola. Ruiz weighed 256 pounds for that bout but was surprisingly dropped in Round 2 and struggled at times during the first half before he took control.
Ruiz underwent surgery on his right knee in August and will now prepare for just his second fight since the rematch with Joshua.
Ortiz, ESPN’s No. 8 heavyweight, has twice challenged for the WBC heavyweight title, and both times he was knocked out by Deontay Wilder. Ortiz was ahead on the scorecards in the November 2019 rematch when Wider scored the spectacular KO.
Since the setback, Ortiz, 43, has fought just twice. He scored a first-round KO of journeyman Alexander Flores before he met Charles Martin on New Year’s Day 2022. Ortiz was floored in the opening round and again in the fourth but rallied for a brutal stoppage in Round 6.
A fight between Ruiz and Ortiz was expected to take place next; Ruiz posted a fan graphic of the matchup on Instagram in late March along with the caption: “How many of my fans would like to see this fight happen next on PPV?”
When Ortiz learned of the Ruiz-Spong matchup, he was naturally surprised. Spong (14-0, 13 KOs) isn’t an accomplished boxer but a former Glory Kickboxing champion who hasn’t boxed since 2019.
“[Ruiz is] a coward,” Ortiz told Spanish-language newspaper El Nuevo Herald on Thursday. “He knew how badly I wanted to fight him, but he decided to take an easy route. … A fight is coming that nobody is interested in and that is useless in his career.”
Instead, a Ruiz-Ortiz bout is one that fans will surely be very interested in, and the winner will inch closer to another title shot.