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What Happened When Evander Holyfield Once Sparred Against A Teenage Andy Ruiz Jr

What Happened When Evander Holyfield Once Sparred Against A Teenage Andy Ruiz Jr

The former Heavyweight Champion of the World once sparred against the current Heavyweight Champion of the World when Andy Ruiz Jr was a Teen

Anonymous

Anonymous

By Mike Parrott

Evander Holyfield once sparred against a teenage Andy Ruiz Jr. The former two-weight Champion fought the current Heavyweight Champion with the surfaced video showing a close affair between the Boxers.

Andy Ruiz Jr. has fought legends of the Boxing ring before he faced Anthony Joshua in June. The current WBA, WBO, and IBF Heavyweight Champion once faced off against Boxing legend Evander Holyfield when Ruiz was only a teen.

The near-three minute clip of the spar from 2008 shows a noticeably slimmer Ruiz giving Holyfield a decent fight with his Anthony Joshua-described 'Punch of the Gods' landing a few times on Holyfield.

When the Boxing legend was asked about the spar in November 2019, Holyfield said he saw the potential there back in the spar from over ten years ago:

"Andy Ruiz Jr. really can fight. He has fast hands and can really hit hard. But don't nobody seem to know it."

"Everyone is thinking it's a fluke (that he beat Anthony Joshua the first time), but the guy showed he can get up from being knocked down. He got took down and got back up to win."

Holyfield went on to tell WorldBoxingNews how Ruiz had quite the advantage being a late replacement for Jarrell Miller in the initial Anthony Joshua fight:

"I realize that when you're supposed to fight somebody and they bring someone else, they can sneak you just like when I fought Bert Cooper. You know, I was meant to fight Francesco Damiani and then I got Bert Cooper who was a journeyman. He was a good fighter at one time, but he couldn't do a lot and all this and he landed a good shot.

"I was able to recover but these things can happen. The thing is with me personally, and I understand the boxing game, you look at Ruiz and he doesn't look like he can fight at all. Nothing tells you he can fight, but he can."

Ruiz-Joshua 2 is set to take place on Saturday, December 7 with ring-walks set to commence around 8:45pm GMT.

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Anthony Joshua, Boxing, Andy Ruiz Jr.