Tyson Backs Joshua To Beat Ruiz In Rematch

Mike Tyson insists Anthony Joshua should be confident of beating Andy Ruiz Jr second time around if he has covered all bases for the rematch.

Ruiz shocked the world on June 1 to become the new WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion and hand Joshua his first loss as a professional.

American-Mexican Ruiz was floored by AJ early in the fight but recovered to surprisingly turn things around at Madison Square Garden.

The two fighters are set to go at it once again on December 7 in Saudi Arabia with all of the belts on the line just like in the first fight.

Both fighters have noticeably slimmed down since their previous meeting and Tyson has questioned this but claims Joshua can win this time if he has been intelligent in the build-up.

Asked what AJ needs to do in the rematch, Tyson told Parimatch: ”Obviously he knows what happened, because I’m sure he’s watched the films.

“Because if he’s intelligent like I believe he is, he watched the films over and over of the last encounter he had with Ruiz. And he’s worried, but he should be confident that he can be successful.”

On Ruiz’s transformation, he continued: “I just don’t think that makes any sense.

“But everybody has their own thing, their vanity gets the best of them, they say ‘Hey, I wanna look good doing this stuff’, I don’t know. But I’m a believer that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

“The only thing Ruiz has to do is do what he did last fight. That’s all he has to live off of, from his memories, so to speak, from the last fight.”