The other heavyweight who has beaten Anthony Joshua has emerged as a potential opponent for Tyson Fury.
Now that negotiations have ceased between teams for Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, Bob Arum, whose company co-promotes Fury, has informed BoxingScene.com that former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. is a possible foe for Fury’s return to the ring. England’s Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) is expected to defend his WBC belt sometime this summer, probably in London.
“[Joe] Joyce would be a possibility, assuming he gets by the Chinese fighter, because Tyson wants to fight this summer,” Arum told BoxingScene.com. “And Andy Ruiz would be a possibility. We’re gonna be talking to Tyson next week.”
London’s Joyce (15-0, 14 KOs) is scheduled to face massive Chinese southpaw Zhang Zhilei (24-1-1, 19 KOs) in a 12-round fight for Joyce’s WBO interim heavyweight title Saturday night at Copper Box Arena in London. Joyce, 37, and Zhilei, 39, will headline a card BT Sport 1 will televise in the United Kingdom and Ireland (7 p.m. BST) and ESPN+ will stream in the United States (2 p.m. EDT).
Joyce, who is listed as a 9-1 favorite to beat Zhilei, is promoted by Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, which co-promotes Fury along with Arum’s Top Rank Inc. They wouldn’t necessarily need to stay in house, according to Arum, to find Fury’s next opponent.
Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) is still affiliated with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, but Arum doesn’t consider that an obstacle that would prevent Fury from fighting Ruiz next.
“If that was the fight we were gonna make,” Arum said, “I don’t think Al would stand in the way because we would be offering [Ruiz] a big opportunity, for a nice payday.”
Former WBC champ Deontay Wilder is ranked first among the WBC’s heavyweight contenders, one spot atop the second-ranked Ruiz. Fury stopped Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) in the seventh round of their rematch and violently knocked him out in 11th round of their third bout, thus there isn’t much of a market for what would be an expensive fourth Fury-Wilder fight.
The 33-year-old Ruiz last fought September 4, when he dropped Cuban southpaw Luis Ortiz (33-3, 28 KOs, 2 NC) three times and defeated him by unanimous decision in a 12-rounder that was the main event of a FOX Sports Pay-Per-View show at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Ruiz has fought just twice since he lost his 12-round rematch to Joshua (25-3, 22 KOs) by unanimous decision in December 2020 at Diriyah Arena in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. The Imperial, California native completely changed his life when he dropped Joshua, who was undefeated at that time, four times and upset the former IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO champ by seventh-round technical knockout in June 2019 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
“We had Andy,” said Arum, Ruiz’s former promoter. “His purse demands were such that we let him go. And he showed us his ability to earn big money. He’s a lovely guy. I mean, I always liked Andy. His father’s a nice guy. So, I wish him well.”
Joseph Parker defeated Ruiz by majority decision in December 2016, when Ruiz first fought for a heavyweight title while he was promoted by Top Rank. A then-undefeated Parker won the vacant WBO championship when he edged Ruiz at Spark Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, Parker’s home country.
“He can fight,” Arum said of Ruiz. “We always knew that. He’s one of [Top Rank matchmaker] Bruce Trampler’s favorite fighter.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.