A slimmed-down Jarrell Miller predicts his fight against former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. will be the best one on Saturday’s undercard at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles. Ruiz vs. Miller will be battling on the Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov card, which will be live on DAZN PPV.
Jarrell Miller’s Transformation
Miller (26-1-1, 22 KOs) looks like he’s lost a lot of weight since his last fight on December 23rd against Daniel Dubois, and he’s intent on sending Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) down to his third career defeat.
Jarrell weighed 333 lbs for the Dubois fight, and he was not in the kind of shape to enable him to fight hard for a full twelve rounds. Miller looks considerably slimmer since that fight against Dubois seven months ago, and he could be trouble for Ruiz.
‘The Destroyer’ Ruiz looks like he’s carrying a lot of extra weight around his midsection and isn’t in the condition he was in when he pulled off an upset against Anthony Joshua on June 1st, 2019. That’s unsurprising, given that Ruiz hasn’t fought in nearly two years since his victory over Luis Ortiz in September 2022. Ruiz has been holed up in his mansion in Southern California, living the domestic life of a millionaire.
“We are going to lay leather, man. We are two big guys. We throw fast punches and a lot of punches. We’re probably going to make the undercard look crazy,” said Jarrell Miller to the media about his fight this Saturday night against former unified heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
Ruiz, 34, has never been knocked out, but there’s always a first time. Miller’s best path to victory is to outwork Ruiz, tire him out, and focus on winning a decision. Ruiz lost a lot of rounds in his previous fight against 43-year-old Luis Ortiz in 2022, and he only won because he dropped the older fighter three times.
If Ortiz had stayed on his feet, he would have easily won because the scores were close at the end. The fight showed that Ruiz has lost much from his game since his best years, and he’s now relying on his power to win. His last two opponents were in their 40s, and he still didn’t look good.
“We’d stop him, we’d beat him down. You can’t box a master boxer. Usyk is a guy that you got to walk down. You got to put the weight on him. You got to rush him,” said Jarrell Miller on his strategy for defeating WBA, WBC, and WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Looking Beyond Ruiz
If Jarrell Miller is victorious against Ruiz on Saturday night, he’ll put himself in the picture among the top heavyweights in the division. His Excellency Turki Alalshikh could help Miller get a title shot against Usyk, Tyson Fury, or Anthony Joshua. That would be a major comeback story for Miller if he can bring himself back after all these years.
Initially, Miller was scheduled to fight Joshua in June 2019 but was pulled from the fight after testing positive for a banned substance. Ruiz came in and defeated Joshua and was an instant millionaire.
“You can’t be sitting there, and that’s what Tyson [Fury] did wrong. Tyson had a good strategy,” said Ruiz. “Kind of gassed out, trying to box and move around too much. He should have walked him down and put the pressure on him.”
Miller has it wrong. Fury wasn’t moving around in his fight against Usyk last May. He was fighting with his back against the ropes, conserving energy, and wasn’t in the kind of shape to enable him to get the victory. He looked chunky around the waist.
“I throw more punches. I got a better chin,” said Jarrell Miller about what he does that makes him a better fighter than Andy Ruiz.
Miller’s work rate could be a big problem for Ruiz if he can fight hard for a full ten rounds without gassing out in this fight like he did against Dubois. If Miller throws the number of shots he did against Dubois, he will make life tough on Ruiz, who doesn’t have that kind of a work rate due to his cardio problems.
“He throws more punches, but I throw the right punches,” said Ruiz about what he does better than Miller. “I throw the accurate punches.”
Ruiz’s left hook saved him in his last fight against Ortiz, but just barely. The three knockdowns he scored in the Ortiz fight were from left hooks, and he showed that he still has a lot of power in that punch. That’s the punch that Ruiz initially stunned Joshua in the third round of their first fight.
“In my last fight, he can say that,” said Miller, conceding that he failed in his last performance against Daniel Dubois last December.
