Andy Ruiz Jr. was supposed to lose quietly and relatively quickly to Anthony Joshua so that boxing could go ahead with dream matches.
Hello everyone. My name is Houston Mitchell and let’s get right to the news.
Boxing
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Andy Ruiz Jr. was supposed to lose quietly and relatively quickly to Anthony Joshua so that boxing could go ahead with the dream matches that involved Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury. But someone forgot to tell Ruiz, who delivered a shocking seventh-round technical knockout of Wilder on Saturday at Madison Square Garden.
“I had a lot of fans over there rooting for me,” Ruiz said of his border farming hometown of Imperial, Calif., east of San Diego. “I’m sure they’re all proud. That’s where I grew up. I’m sure they’re all smiling, saying, ‘He did it, a kid from a small, little town did it.’
“Everything is possible, man. You believe in God, focus, believe in your dreams, never give up. And if someone puts you down, don’t listen. Keep working. Look what I did. I just made history.”
As Lance Pugmire writes, “Joshua’s loss shakes up the heavyweight division and adds another interesting date to the calendar, as Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn said he expects his fighter to invoke the rematch clause in his contract to meet Ruiz again around November, likely in Cardiff, Wales.
“That date will be sandwiched between World Boxing Council champion Deontay Wilder’s fall rematch with Luis Ortiz, and Wilder’s planned early 2020 rematch with unbeaten former three-division champion Tyson Fury.
“The interesting wrinkle for Joshua, who has one fight left on his contract with the streaming service DAZN, is that he has been reduced from a heavyweight who called all the shots after drawing 90,000 to Wembley Stadium two years ago to a fighter who must take the rematch.
“Otherwise, Ruiz, who like Wilder fights for Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, has contractual leeway to take his belts and move toward Wilder down the road.
“It’s a minor setback,” said Joshua, who’s 29 like Ruiz. “I’ll bounce back and get my hands on those belts again.… I’ll beat him up. Tidy up, brush off the cobwebs and fight again.
“Losing is something we can learn from. Tighten up. Get smart. There’s more to come. Winning is everything, but if you do happen to take an ‘L,’ reset, readjust… I do not condone losing. On to the next one. The hunger is always there. I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow.”
UCLA softball
Rachel Garciahit a three-run walkoff home run Sunday to lift the UCLA Bruins to a 3-0 win over Washington and into the championship series at the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2010.
The No. 2 Bruins will face No. 1 Oklahoma in the best-of-three championship series, which begins today.
UCLA was in the semifinals, one win away from the championship series, but lost back-to-back games against Florida State to be eliminated. Garcia pitched both losses.
“She wasn’t gonna let that happen again,” Bruins coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “And I think that’s what it comes down to, your ability to stay convicted. This team never gave up.
“There’s a resiliency about our team. But most importantly, there’s a belief that we will win. They didn’t get overly frustrated or emotional. They just kept throwing punches.”
Women’s World Cup
Although she is one of the most decorated coaches of one of the most successful teams in soccer history, Jill Ellis, the coach of the U. S. women’s soccer team, finds her way forward limited not by her talent but by her gender.
As Kevin Baxter writes, “What money, fame and prestige there are in coaching exist primarily on the men’s side. Yet that remains exclusively a boys’ club where sex, not success, determines admission. While men routinely coach women in every sport on every level, the number of women coaching men can be counted on one hand — with some fingers left over.
“Why hasn’t it happened? Because there hasn’t been an opportunity for it to happen,” said Ellis, who will coach the U.
