Boxing: A few pieces of advice for Ruiz

Before I begin, let me just say that I love boxing. I know nothing about it, I don't follow it too closely, but I love it. There's just something inherently appealing to me about watching two punch-drunk savages attempting to kill each other in a controlled environment.

Now, that being said, I had a real problem with Saturday night's Roy Jones, Jr.-Johnny Ruiz heavyweight "title" bout. But, my problems had nothing to do with Ruiz' bumbling or Jones' dancing circles around his far-inferior opponent.

Rather, what threw me off came early and hit hard. It was the walk-in for Johnny Ruiz, when the eventual loser of the night chose to make his first impressions on America (hey, I didn't watch any of the three prior Ruiz-Holyfield fights, either) by entering the ring to a Billy Joel ballad. It was right about that time I realized this fight was going to be a joke.

However, I should have known better anyway. Jones is perhaps the best fighter of all time, so of course he's going to nab a skirt like Ruiz for his first heavyweight fight. Had Jones lost, it would have been the most anti-climactic moment in recent sports history.

"Here comes Roy Jones, the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing history. Yeeesh! Ohhhh! Ruiz, who struggled mightily with the old, brain-dead version of Evander Holyfield, is really taking it to Jones!"

Can anyone actually see that happening? Of course not.

Alas, that's not why I'm here. My head is still spinning from Ruiz' selection of a Billy Joel tune to enter the ring to on Saturday. What was the goal of this? Was he trying to give a heads-up to people who might have bet on him that he was really a wuss with no chance of winning? Was he trying to ease any pre-fight butterflies Jones might have had?

Regardless of the reason, there's a good chance Ruiz might one day fight again. So, with that horrible thought in mind, I present 10 songs Ruiz might consider the next time he enters the ring and gives someone else another easy one to add to their win column.

1. "It's Raining Men," Weather Girls. If Ruiz really wants to hammer home the fact that he's only half a man, then this is the way to go. Plus, Ruiz' next fight won't be big enough to attract any A-list celebrities, so wouldn't it be great to see B-listers like John Ritter, Tony Danza and even a shackled Robert Blake relive their disco-era glory days during Ruiz' walk-in? I'd pay $50 to see that.

2. "Everybody Hurts," R.E.M. There isn't a less intimidating man on the planet than R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, who frequently looks like a cross between Tom Hanks' character in "Philadelphia" and an anorexic teenage girl suffering through male pattern baldness. So, Mr. Ruiz, why not choose Stipe's annoying wail about human depression? It doesn't get any less intimidating than this.

3. "Come On, Get Happy," The Partridge Family. If Ruiz ever chooses this song, I just hope it happens when he's about to fight Mike Tyson. Could you imagine Jim Gray asking Tyson (and you know he would) what he was thinking when he heard The Partridge Family blaring as Ruiz was entering the ring?

4. "Dust in the Wind," Kansas. Nothing angers a jock more than a hippie, and this soft-rock classic has hippie written all over it.

5. "Dancing Queen," Abba. It comes from the disco era. It would imply that Ruiz is calling himself a queen. Anything else? Oh yeah, Abba is from Sweden, a place from where nothing even remotely masculine has ever come.

6. "How Can We Be Lovers," Michael Bolton. I would drop dead on the spot if a fighter ever entered the ring to a Michael Bolton song. If Ruiz chooses this, there should be a law passed that he has to get a perm and grow his hair down to his waist. To all my Congressmen readers, let's get to work on this one, fellas.

7. "Say Goodbye," Dave Matthews Band. This one might actually give Ruiz an edge. After all, if I was a boxer and my opponent entered the ring to a song that implied he wanted to have sexual intercourse with me just once and not tell anyone, I'd be frightened, let alone intimidated.

8. Any song by Air Supply. Nobody defines the musical genre of wuss rock better than the duo of Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock. So if Ruiz really wants to put his opponents at ease, this is definitely the way to go.

9. "Open Arms," Journey. Implying that you want to run into the comforting embrace of your opponent is definitely a good way to establish yourself as a bona fide skirt.

10. "I Would Do Anything for Love," Meat Loaf. The appeal here is that there's a very good chance Ruiz could get Meat Loaf to perform this one live for the price of a jug of moonshine and a half-dozen sandwiches from Arby's. Plus, it's about time Meat found himself back in some sort of spotlight.

So, the next time you reflect on the career of a boxing great such as Roy Jones, Jr., be sure to remember the Johnny Ruizes of the world, because without guys like Ruiz and Graham Russell, what could the rest of us judge our manhood by?