By Bart Barry-
Saturday at Madison Square Garden in a fight broadcast by DAZN, statuesque world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and misshapen challenger Andy Ruiz made quite possibly the funniest spectacle in our beloved sport’s history. If you weren’t laughing or at least smiling you missed one of life’s unique opportunities, and if you were among others who weren’t laughing with you, why, you must improve your associations immediately.
Chubby Andy Ruiz, brought in on short notice for a ritual humiliation with the baddest man on the planet, razed Joshua a fourtime, made him a passive round-7 quitter, and humiliated the whole of boxing’s heavyweight institution.
The moment was ecstatic. As ringside commentators and scribes readied their solemnest tones to impart the historic import of what just happened, the DAZN replays, hyper-definition hyper-slo-mo showed the challenger’s back, jiggling pornographically, as he put the finishing touches on AJ. It was a form of visual comedy whose authenticity someday may be matched but cannot be topped. It was a sight so wondrous a child couldn’t miss its absurdity and any right-thinking adult had to enjoy it a hundred times more for its rarity.
Joshua, to his credit, laughed through the entire episode; perhaps the absurdity enchanted him, too, or perhaps he was knocked silly or perhaps longsuffering aficionados called for comeuppance in a single voice and for once the universe heeded us. It was not a joke on Joshua so much as his enablers. The selfaggrandizing fleshpeddlers and circusbarkers, the celebrity tourists and their publicists, the vlog buffs and podcast critics and every dweeb with a calculator app and pay-per-view prediction, the lot of them, didn’t know enough to laugh – didn’t realize the moment called for joyful selflessness, for losing oneself not in Ruiz’s triumph but in our sport’s absurdest moment.
“Honest to God, he’s going to lose to Ruiz.”
“AJ’s going to get caught with a lucky punch?”
“Nope.”
“He’s going to separate his shoulder or sprain his ankle?”
“Not even close.”
“He’s going to get robbed by Yank judging?”
“Colder.”
“I give up.”
“Fully able to continue, after getting spanked and sparked by an obese lad over whom he towers, Joshua’s going to spit his mouthpiece, retreat to a corner and refuse to defend his four titles one second longer.”
Part of the ecstasy of the moment was its impossible unpredictability. Even if a wiseacre or innocent among us bothered to pick Ruiz on a lark, not even he might’ve predicted Saturday’s final instants: Joshua’s taking a knee, enduring another count, rising robotically, retreating to a corner, refusing to toe the line, telling the referee he wanted to toe the line, reclining further in his corner, refusing to toe the line, telling the referee he wanted to toe the line, watching the referee wave hands in front of him, feigning a momentary disgust, resigning himself, reclining once more.
Joshua’s hardest fight was with disbelief much as Andy Ruiz. Told his entire career what a business he was, how many livelihoods he sustained throughout the kingdom, how groundbreaking be his brand, AJ waited patiently for some institutional intervention; his majesty requested a sabbatical in round 7, and only the grandest act of ingratitude might deny it. Then it happened – his request got declined. As you read this, whether on the day it is published or 10 years later, Joshua still can’t believe his request for recovery time got rejected.
Do you have any idea who I am?
It’s funnier still to know, as we all now do, his request for sabbatical, if granted, wouldn’t have changed anything but the official time of stoppage. Joshua was beaten in round 3, not even a halfminute after dropping Ruiz with a dandy hook. Ruiz rose, confused, while something like the word “inevitable” went through every bystander’s mind at once. It was, then, time to train our eyes on Joshua, the better to observe how quickly he took Ruiz’s consciousness, compare it in real time with our recollection of what Deontay Wilder did a few weeks back, and birth a fully formed conclusion on who would win the hypothetical match between them.
And then in the middle of the sacrifice Saturday’s scapegoat nipped its highpriest. Just a nip, truly, a balance shot but nothing a baddest man on the planet should register. Then the entire artifice came down in a laughable heap, rose, then came down again and again. We can leave the serious analysis to anyone who still takes any heavyweight seriously but drop a breadcrumb as we skitter away laughing: Ruiz nearly broke Joshua in half with a midrounds right cross to his midsection that dropped the champion’s left guard surely as fatigue dropped the champion’s full self, and that tells you the wisdom of Joshua’s wanting an immediate rematch.
How damnably fragile be these giants! Ten punches in his finishing move Joshua was suffocating, heaving his gorgeous pecks and regal delts, pleading Manhattan thicken its air. What the hell kind of professional fighter finds himself drowning 10 punches in to a fight’s ninth minute?
It added to the moment’s high mirth, though, it did. The fatman’s shimmying pursuit, the giant’s ridiculous retreat, the most important arena in the history of important arenas gone muted, the imperial palace reduced to what red sauce and orange cheese cover an enchilada plate.
The spectacle was relentless fantastic. The champion tagged and toothless, his mouth alternating between airsucking ovals and get-this! smirks, the champion’s boundless selfassurance swapped in a realtime identity crisis (how about that ridiculous bouncing-n-boxing thing in round 6), and all for our entertainment. Sport can be no more entertaining than Saturday’s main event. If you’re new to boxing be grateful you’ll have a standard of comparison the rest of your days, and if you’re old to boxing be grateful you lived long enough to witness the funniest moment of the modern era.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
