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.
