adminNEW YORK. — When Andy Ruiz Jr bought a white Rolls Royce his father was not happy.
“I told him ‘Andy, this is your last car, don’t buy any more,’” Andres Ruiz recalls.
“I said, if anything, buy a Rolls Royce and rent it out, make money. You can make $30,000 a month on it.”
No matter that a car for his mother Felicitas had been the newly crowned heavyweight champion of the world’s first purchase after he dethroned Britain’s Anthony Joshua in July, or that he has since bought his dad a new truck.
No matter that he had paid $1m cash for a new home. Or that Ruiz will earn more than $10m in tomorrow’s rematch in Saudi Arabia.
It was the principle.
If the cars or his lavish California home and its swimming pool are symbolic of a changed life, so too is the increased demand for the Mexican-American fighter.
Ruiz has met the president of Mexico, he has been interviewed by US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, he has thrown out the first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game and he has been paraded on the back of a convertible Rolls Royce through the city he grew up in.
The man ridiculed for his rotund physique has even started modelling for a menswear brand.
There have been new gold and diamond chains, and in the words of the champion himself, “fun things I always wanted”.
But if his father wants evidence that his son can be sensible about finances, Ruiz did dig his heels in when a rematch with Joshua was called. Contractually he was obligated but his refusal to fight in Cardiff and, for a time, Saudi Arabia led to a fairly common boxing solution — money. — BBC Sport.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter