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John “The Quiet Man” Ruiz (born January 4,
1972), a native of Isabela, Puerto Rico|Isabela,
Puerto Rico who lives in Massachusetts, is the
first Hispanic/Latino world heavyweight champion
in professional boxing history.  He currently is
the two-time World Boxing Association (WBA) world
List of Heavyweight Champions|Heavyweight
Champion.  His professional record is 41-5-1-1
(the last digit is for a “no-contest”), with
28 knockouts.  Frustrated by years of criticism
from the boxing press and fans, he retired upon
his second loss of the WBA Title on April 30, 2005
(to James Toney|James “Lights-Out” Toney). 
Ruiz quickly “un-retired” on the
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7817259/ news that
Toney tested positive for anabolic steroids after
their match.  The official outcome, a
unanimous-decision defeat, was changed to a
no-contest; the WBA ordered that Ruiz retain the
title.

Despite so far being a two-time world champion
(most boxers never win one) who has only been
knocked out once (by David Tua on March 15, 1996),
Ruiz is widely viewed as an unworthy titleholder. 
Each world title ascendency has been accredited
more to political maneuvering than anything else. 
Ruiz is also widely disliked for his
“jab-and-grab” style.  This approach features
slow body movement; infrequent, single-shot
punching; and, limiting opponents’ punches by
grabbing their arms when they come within striking
distance of him.

== First reign as WBA champion ==

After Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield for
the Undisputed (i.e., WBC + IBF + WBA) World
Heavyweight Championship in late 1999, the WBA
ordered Lewis to defend the title against Ruiz,
its #1-ranked contender. Lewis refused, deeming
Ruiz an unworthy challenger.  Though undefeated
since the Tua match, the level of competition Ruiz
had been facing was suspect.

Ruiz and his management team sued, claiming that
WBA rules entitled him to a title shot.  A judge
agreed, but rather than face Ruiz in a bout that
was seen as commercially unattractive, Lewis
instead fought Michael Grant, considered to be a
very worthy contender at the time.  After learning
this, the judge decreed that upon entering the
ring against Grant on April 29, 2000, Lewis would
automatically forfeit the WBA Title.

Ruiz fought former champion Holyfield to fill the
vacancy on August 12, 2000, losing by unanimous
decision (this result made Holyfield the first to
win a world heavyweight title on four separate
occasions).  Many observers and boxing reporters
felt that the underdog Ruiz had done enough to
win.  Due to this controversial “unanimous”
decision, the WBA ordered an immediate rematch. 
On March 3, 2001, Ruiz won the WBA Championship in
a slightly less-close unanimous decision.  Ruiz
defended the title twice: a draw in a third match
against Holyfield, and a 10th-round
disqualification win over Canada’s Kirk Johnson.
 On March 1, 2003 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas,
Nevada, Ruiz’s first reign as champion ended —
against a light-heavyweight whom he outweighed by
over 30 lbs.  He lost a lopsided unanimous
decision to the legendary Roy Jones, Jr., who had
grown so bored with dominating his weight class
that he wanted to see if he could be also conquer
the (reportedly weak, at the time) heavyweight
division.     

In defeating Ruiz, Jones joined Michael Spinks and
Michael Moorer as the only world light-heavyweight
champions to later win a world heavyweight title. 
He was also only the second former world
middleweight champion to win a heavyweight title
(the first being Bob Fitzsimmons, who beat
“Gentleman” James J. Corbett|Jim Corbett on
March 17, 1897).

== Second reign as WBA champion ==
Roy Jones, Jr. was now a world heavyweight
champion, but he was still bored.  He could not
decide whether to: return to light-heavyweight;
retire as an “undefeated” world heavyweight
champion; or, stay WBA world Heavyweight Champion
and try to unify the division, giving up his
light-heavyweight belts in the process.  Jones
soon failed to meet the WBA-imposed deadline to
face Vitali Klitschko, its #1 contender.  As per
its rules, the WBA meanwhile set up a bout between
Klitschko and #2-ranked Hasim Rahman for an
interim version of its heavyweight belt.  The
interim champion would subsequently fight Jones to
settle the title's disputed status.

Vitali Klitschko refused to negotiate the match
against Rahman, citing that he had no interest in
just an interim title.  The WBA then turned to
David Tua, its #3 contender.  While Tua initially
agreed to fight Rahman, he later pulled out of the
bout, too.  Ruiz, whom Tua had knocked out in 19
seconds — but as the #5 contender, was the
highest-ranked fighter willing to take the match
— agreed to fight Rahman, a former World Boxing
Council|WBC / IBF world heavyweight champion who
had won and lost his titles to Lewis (by knockout)
in 2001. 

On December 13, 2003, Ruiz defeated Rahman by
unanimous decision, earning him the first-ever WBA
Interim world Heavyweight Title.  On February 20,
2004, Roy Jones, Jr. advised the WBA that he would
return to the light-heavyweight division, vacating
its List of Heavyweight Champions|heavyweight
championship.  The WBA then removed the
“interim” tag from Ruiz’s championship
status, declaring his victory over Rahman to be
sufficient to be the official WBA world
Heavyweight Champion.

On April 17, 2004, Ruiz fought the first defense
of his second world title.  He retained it with an
eleventh-round technical knockout (TKO; the
referee stops the fight due to one boxer taking a
sustained beating without sufficiently fighting
back, in the referee’s opinion) of Fres Oquendo
at Madison Square Garden.  This fight was historic
in that it was the first time two
Hispanics/Latinos faced each other for a world
heavyweight title.

On November 13 of that same year, Ruiz retained
the belt with a close unanimous-decision over
Polish-American "Andrew" Golota |Andrzej Golota,
though suffering 2 knockdowns and a one-point
reduction by referee Randy Neumann.

On April 30, 2005, Ruiz lost the title — sort of
— to Toney in Madison Square Garden, becoming
the first to have both of his heavyweight
championship reigns ended by former middleweights.
 However, after failing the post-match drug test
(stanozolol, an anabolic steroid), the New York
Athletic Commission suspended Toney from boxing in
the USA for 90 days, and fined him $10,000 (U.S.).
 The WBA barred Toney from fighting for its world
Heavyweight Championship for the next two years. 
This resulted in Toney's win being changed to a
"no contest", essentially cancelling the result;
Ruiz was given back the belt.

==See also==
*List of famous Puerto Ricans
*Reigning Boxing Champions

==External links==
*http://www.johnquietmanruiz.com/

start box
succession box |
  before= Evander Holyfield |
  title= List of heavyweight boxing
champions|Heavyweight boxing champion (WBA) |
  years= 2000–2001 |
  after= John Ruiz

succession box |
  before= John Ruiz |
  title= List of heavyweight boxing
champions|Heavyweight boxing champion (WBA) |
  years= 2001–2003 |
  after= Roy Jones Jr.

succession box |
  before= Roy Jones Jr. |
  title= List of heavyweight boxing
champions|Heavyweight boxing champion (WBA) |
  years= 2003–2003 |
  after= John Ruiz

succession box |
  before= John Ruiz |
  title= List of heavyweight boxing
champions|Heavyweight boxing champion (WBA) |
  years= 2003– |
  after= —

end box