ANTHONY JOSHUA VS ANDY RUIZ: THE POLITICS BEHIND THE FIGHT

Last Saturday's headline heavyweight boxing event at Madison Square saw a huge upset. The press have exaggerated its magnitude, but it was certainly a bigger upset than Lewis vs McCall, perhaps as big as Lewis vs Rahman on paper (but which was expected by those who realised Lewis had undertrained), but not as big as Tyson vs Douglas. Nonetheless, Anthony Joshua's loss to squat, fat Hispanic Andy Ruiz will go down as one of the great shock results of heavyweight boxing. After Ruiz got up from a solid uppercut square on the chin in round three, Joshua found himself suddenly tasting the canvas and was on the back foot from there on in, being put down with ease several times before the referee waved it off in the seventh round. Joshua half-heartedly protested that he was fit to continue, but the vacant look in his eyes, of a man who didn't quite know where he was, who had lost any ability to defend himself and who had already spat out his gumshield in resignation, told a different story. As a White European, I watched this bout as a neutral, but the politics behind the fight were as interesting as the match itself and certainly more relevant in a sport that has always been heavily politicised.

 

 

 

The post-match press conferences told everything one needed to know about the two boxers. Ruiz came out first, with Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn attempting to patronise him over his monumental victory. Had Eddie Hearn either grace or wisdome, he would have conceded that Ruiz, who had taken the fight at short notice after Jarell Miller was found to have been using performance enhancing drugs, was simply streets ahead of Joshua in terms of hand speed, power, precision, resiliance and, most importantly, fighting spirit. Ruiz talked of his family and his pride of being a Mexican. Indeed, his cornermen consisted of fellow Hispanics, including members of his own family, who all wore Mexican flags as bandanas during the fight.

 

Contrast that with Joshua's press conference a while later. Joshua was obviously concussed, but that bore no impact on what he had to say. The corporate clichés came thicker and faster than his punches had during the contest as Eddie Hearn looked on, with a mouth seemingly full of lemons. It was as though the two had changed roles, Joshua calling him the 'boss man' after Hearn had insisted throughout his professional career that Joshua was the boss. Joshua talked about 'moving forward', 'seeing what's next', being 'all ears' and having 'a minor setback', and that his opponent had 'done his job', all completely dispassionate as though it were all just another day at the office. And throughout, Joshua's promoter and manager Eddie Hearn, a man for whom the meaning of life is defined by the colour of money, sat looking on, sour-faced, more crestfallen than the jewel in the crown of his global business empire. He knew that the jewel had just lost monetary value. Hearn, like his father Barry, is a spiv for whom race and nation has no meaning.

 

In principle, if one ignores the racial principle for a moment, it was a victory for traditional family oriented and ethnocentric values over liberal capitalism. Yet one cannot ignore the ethnicity of the two boxers. Andrés Ponce Ruiz Jr may be a family man, but he is a Hispanic Mexican who strongly identifies as such, yet was born and lives in the USA. Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua meanwhile is a Yoruba Nigerian born in England who sports a tattoo of Africa with Nigeria highlighted on his shoulder. Had Joshua won, it would have been regarded as a victory for the nihilist Left in Britain, but a victory for Ruiz proved to be a victory for the nihilist Left in America, with the media eagerly fawning over his Otherness, but as the British press had done from Joshua's dubious Olympic victory in 2012 onwards. Indeed, the Olympic Superheavyweight gold medal was gifted to him after Cuba's Erislandy Savón and Italy's Roberto Cammarelle had clearly beaten him on points. The judges decided otherwise - and Leftist politics clearly played a part. 

 

One can also contrast the media hype in America between Andy and his namesake John Ruiz. John Ruiz had no such fanfare when he won a world heavyweight title - but John was Latino and not Hispanic. It demonstrates that the elites - often of Jewish ethicity - who control the media see the victory as a victory over Whiteness, just as the media in Britain see Joshua as a victory over Whiteness. During the post-match press conference, one of the journalists asked if Joshua had been to Africa recently, to which he replied that he couldn't wait to see people in Africa. It was a recognition of where Joshua's heritage, loyalty and strength lies, just as Ruiz's lies in Mexico - just as ours as Whites lies in Europe, whether we be in Europe, South Africa, the Americas, the Antipodes or elsewhere. It is time we remembered that, started looking after our own and our own interests. It is time we started ostracising spivs like the Hearns and started helping each other to achieve greatness in whatever field and doing it as a matter of pride in one's family, extended family, race and nation.