Joshua suffered a shock unanimous points defeat to Usyk, losing his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO to the Ukrainian. It was also Joshua’s second defeat in four clashes inside the ring.

Ruiz, who beat Joshua in June 2019 before the Briton bounced back by winning their rematch six months later, claimed that AJ was scared and holding back a bit in Oleksandr Usyk defeat

Ruiz told FightHype.com “I thought Anthony was going to be the stronger man, I thought he was going to box him around with his abilities, you know. He just kind of stayed there. I don’t know why he wasn’t moving around, like in the second fight with me. He ran around and made sure he didn’t get hit, and if he did, he would grab and move around. So he had his strategy. But for this fight, it didn’t go his way.  It was probably the wrong strategy. He probably underestimated him. Kind of like how I did with Chris Arreola. I think Anthony Joshua is still there, still strong. I kind of felt he was scared and holding back a little bit. Maybe it was the lefty style of Usyk and how he moves.’

Joshua is expected to take on Usyk in a rematch next year in a bid to win his world heavyweight titles back for a second time.

The boxer said this at the post match conference, stating his reasons for losing the rematch, he said he partied, became overweight and undertrained for the rematch which took place in Saudi Arabia on Saturday December 7.

Ruiz said: “Three months of partying and celebrating affected me, what can I say? Being overweight, I wasn’t fluid enough, I wasn’t moving the way I wanted to move. I think if I’m lighter I’m going to let my hands go and be a completely different fighter.”

Joshua lost the titles to Ruiz in a shock June defeat in New York. With his victory, Joshua has joined greats such as Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield on the list of heavyweights to reclaim world titles on the first attempt.

Dominating from the outset, Joshua won by margins of 118-110 on two scorecards with the third judge making it 119-109.

Ruiz recorded a monster upset, by knocking down Joshua four times to take the World Boxing Association, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization titles.

Ruiz came into the fight as a massive 32-1 underdog but he won it by TKO in the middle of the seventh when the referee stopped it at 1:26 of the round after the fourth knockdown. Ruiz knocked Joshua down twice in the third round and twice more in the seventh .