The less fancied American was given the chance to face unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua at Madison Square Garden in a fight which many thought would be a formality for the British star. 

What transpired was one of the biggest shocks in recent memory with Ruiz stopping Joshua in the seventh round and becoming a unified world heavyweight champion. 

Despite knowing that a rematch with Joshua would be next, Ruiz enjoyed lavish celebrations following his triumph, but this appeared to have a detrimental effect on his performance during his second meeting with AJ six months later with the British fighter making easy work of his opponent in Diriyah to become a two-time champion. 

Speaking about the rematch on DAZN's Off The Cuff, Ruiz revealed what went wrong in the Joshua rematch and he was quick to criticise how he conducted himself following the biggest win of his career. 

"I think I stayed too much in the party life, I was still enjoying the win," Ruiz said. 

"I totally forgot I had the rematch in six months, it goes by so fast.

"When I went to Saudi Arabia, I gained 30 more pounds, I wasn’t focused, I wasn’t ready."

Since that loss to Joshua, Ruiz has fought just twice with wins over Chris Arreola and Luis Ortiz in 2021 and 2022 respectively, but he ends this period of inactivity this coming Saturday live on DAZN. 

The former unified world heavyweight champion will be facing Jarrell Miller on the undercard of Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov in a fight which will see the winner revive their career and be in line to face one of the heavyweight division's biggest names. 

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