Pro Boxing Fans<\/a>, \u2018The Real Deal\u2019 cited a sparring session with Andy Ruiz Jr as the moment he realised his career \u2018was over.\u2019<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I sparred that guy Ruiz and when he was 19 years old he was able to tag me, I knew then [it was over]. I don\u2019t pass my age range where it no longer makes sense to get hit like that by somebody you think you should be able to beat, because experience and all this, but he had speed and I was losing speed\u2026.<\/p>\n
When we were sparring, every day he did the same thing \u2026 He was aggressive then. It kind of embarrassed me a little bit. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m a champ and you chasing me like this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
If the sparring session was when Ruiz was 19, it happened in 2009, and Holyfield fought on just two more occasions professionally before hanging up the gloves.<\/p>\n
Ruiz made his debut that year and went on a run of 29 fights undefeated before losing on points to Joseph Parker in a razor thin contest. Three wins thereafter saw him in a position to step in on late notice to face Anthony Joshua in 2019, shocking the world with a seventh round stoppage to become the unified heavyweight world champion.<\/p>\n
Ruiz would lost the rematch six months later and has failed to reach those heights since, plagued by inactivity and injury, although has teased a return in 2026.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evander Holyfield believes he is the greatest heavyweight in the history of the sport, but he was candid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-185511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}