Andy Ruiz Jr has claimed Anthony Joshua is willing to agree to a trilogy fight in order to settle their heavyweight rivalry.
Joshua suffered his first career defeat on a historic night at Madison Square Garden when he was stopped by late replacement Ruiz Jr in 2019. 'AJ' outboxed Ruiz Jr in their Saudi Arabia rematch six months later to regain his three world titles and exact his revenge.
Joshua now faces another rebuilding job after two consecutive losses to Oleksandr Usyk, and is planning a return in the early months of 2023. The British star was ringside in Abu Dhabi recently for Dmitry Bivol's win over Gilberto Ramirez, with Ruiz Jr also in attendance to support his fellow Mexican.
And Joshua's former rival has claimed he brought up the topic of a trilogy fight during a private conversation. “I’m trying to get those titles back. I just spoke to Anthony Joshua, he told me he wants to make something happen, he wants to make the trilogy – that’d be pretty cool!” Ruiz Jr told Intu Boxing. “I just brought it up, but that’s how things happen, and fights get made, so we’ll see.”
Joshua is not planning to drop his level of opponent despite suffering his third career defeat in August, with the likes of Dillian Whyte and Deontay Wilder also on his hist-list. However a trilogy clash with Ruiz Jr would be considered dangerous given the way the Mexican dismantled the star in their opening bout.
Ruiz Jr came into the second contest out of shape and looked much more sluggish, but is now in much better physical shape and has recorded back-to-back wins over Chris Arreola and Luis Ortiz. Joshua had a very similar chat with his promoter Eddie Hearn on the night where he also discussed a third showdown.
Who wins if the pair meet in a trilogy - Anthony Joshua or Andy Ruiz Jr? Let us know in the comments section below
But the Matchroom Boxing kingpin was instead dismissive of a potential clash, and would prefer him to meet alternative options in the new year. "Definitely (Wilder) was one of the names I mentioned to him tonight,” Hearn told reporters when asked if Joshua was open to a number of tests in his heavyweight return. “I’m not just saying it, but I couldn’t say a fight to AJ that he doesn’t go he said tonight about Andy Ruiz. “I said have you seen Andy Ruiz over there, he went ‘yeah, I’d love to fight him again’.
"I was like, ‘why? You’re not fighting him again!' He was like ‘why not?’ and I went ‘f*** off’. He’s horrible! He saw Bakhodir Jalavov and said 'I'd love to fight him' and I go 'why? He's about 4-0! He just wants to fight everybody. It’s just the case of whether he has and it wouldn’t be an easy fight, but an easier fight before he goes into a Deontay Wilder or a Dillian Whyte basically.”
