IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz stated his next opponent Anthony Joshua should take care of himself before the fight. When they fought back in June, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Ruiz dropped Joshua four times before the contest was stopped in the seventh round.
“I think he quit because of the way it was going. I think he was out of it and didn’t know where he was at that moment. I think he quit,” Ruiz said.
“Would I have quit under that sort of attack? It depends on how hurt I was. But I don’t quit. If I fall, I fall.”
But Joshua denies that he quit in the bout, explaining that he could have stayed down when dropped.
“I am a champion no matter what anyone says about me. If the conclusion is that I quit, why didn’t I just stay down? He hit me with a shot that I could not recover from but I still stuck in there,” Joshua said.
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“I got dropped four times and I just kept getting up. The only reason I didn’t walk out of the corner in the seventh round was because my gum-shield was not in and I was waiting for the referee to put it in my mouth but he waved it off.”
“The main thing is I am still fighting. It would be worse if I did not come back — that is true failure.”