IT seemed an inevitability the moment Manny Robles told Andy Ruiz Jnr what he thought of his preparation ahead of a December 7 rematch with Anthony Joshua, but now itโs official: Ruiz and Robles are a team no more.
There have been rumours for weeks now that the two have been moving in separate circles since the Joshua defeat and Robles even admitted he has yet to speak to the former heavyweight champion since leaving Saudi Arabia. Well, it has all now come to a head and Robles is a goner.
โIโve seen it coming, Iโll be honest with you,โ Robles told ESPN. โAndy was just doing whatever the hell he wanted to do. The dad, obviously with him being the manager, he just had no control over his son. None of us had control of him, for that matter.
โSo I just saw it coming. It wasnโt going to work because he wasnโt listening. Heโs not listening to me, heโs not listening to his dad, heโs not listening to anybody. He said it himself after the (post-fight) press conference.
โFortunately for me, Andy took the blame on himself and didnโt sit there like a majority of fighters and blame the coach.
โThey apparently told them that they didnโt want the same thing to repeat itself again.โ
Just as Robles was praised for his role in Ruizโs June 2018 victory over Joshua, he has now, if not publicly, taken a portion of the blame for how it all went wrong six months later. He rightly points out, however, that he is not the first coach to find himself in this unfortunate position, nor will he be the last.
Moreover, there are more good memories than bad ones.
โIโm absolutely grateful and blessed to have been able to experience everything I was able to experience in 2019.
โI mean, we made history, and I have to be thankful for that.
โI have to be thankful to Andy and his dad for giving me the opportunity to be part of something special, to have made history โ for him to become the first Mexican heavyweight champion of the world.โ
Alas, eight months after they made history, Andy Ruiz and Manny Robles are history.
Now that it appears Anthony Joshuaโs next fight will be against Kubrat Pulev in May, the other man in the running, Oleksandr Usyk, could decide to take a warm-up fight rather than rest on his laurels and wait his turn.
Usyk, Joshuaโs WBO mandatory challenger, had hoped to get to Joshua first, but Pulev, his IBF mandatory challenger, has seemingly beaten him to the punch, leaving the Ukrainian out in the cold, at least temporarily. This offers him a choice: hold firm and avoid risking his number one ranking or keep active and fight another heavyweight contender.
According to Usykโs manager, Egis Klimas, the plan is to do the latter, perhaps in the form of a fight against either Dereck Chisora or Joseph Parker, the New Zealander who previously held Joshuaโs WBO crown.
Interestingly, though, Parkerโs trainer, Kevin Barry, expects Usyk to sit back and wait rather than tackle his man or indeed anyone else.
โI honestly believe what weโre going to see is Usyk (choosing to wait) and he will fight Joshua in the summer, providing Joshua blows out Pulev, which he should look spectacular doing,โ he told Sky Sports. โI would love nothing more than the opportunity for us to fight Usyk, but the reality of it is, I donโt think itโs going to happen.โ
If itโs all ifs, buts and maybes for Parker and Chisora at this point, Usyk and Pulev can at least feel reassured to know that so long as they stay undefeated this year they will get the shot at gold they have long been searching for. And, rest assured, staying undefeated will be their aim.