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Mike Coppinger, ESPN
Former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz will fight Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller on Aug. 3 in Los Angeles while Pitbull Cruz will defend his WBA junior welterweight title against Jose Valenzuela, sources told ESPN on Monday.
The fights will take place on the Terence Crawford-Israil Madrimov undercard presented by Riyadh Season, the first boxing event organized by Saudi Arabia outside the kingdom.
Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) will fight for the first time since September 2022, when he floored Luis Ortiz three times in a unanimous-decision victory.
Ruiz, who fights out of Southern California, landed his life-changing shot at then-champion Anthony Joshua in June 2019 when Miller failed a doping test. Ruiz, 34, went on to lose his three heavyweight titles that December in the rematch, the first major boxing event in Saudi Arabia.
Miller (26-1-1, 22 KOs) last competed in December when he was TKO’ed in the 10th round by Daniel Dubois in Riyadh. The 35-year-old Brooklynite has been suspended twice during his boxing career for PED use and once during his kickboxing career.
Cruz (26-2-1, 18 KOs) will make the first defense of the title he won last month with an eighth-round TKO victory over Rolly Romero. That was Cruz’s first fight at 140 pounds. The 25-year-old Mexican has won four fights since a close-decision defeat to Gervonta Davis in December 2021. Cruz is ESPN’s No. 5 junior welterweight.
Valenzuela (13-2, 9 KOs) is coming off a brutal sixth-round KO win over Chris Colbert in a December rematch. The 24-year-old Mexican lost his two previous bouts, a decision defeat to Colbert and a third-round KO at the hands of Edwin De Los Santos. This will be Valenzuela’s 140-pound debut.