Anthony Joshua unleashed a scintillating right uppercut-left hook combination to drop Andy Ruiz Jr. for the first time in his career. Ruiz looked up at the ref, gathered himself and rose off the mat gingerly. Joshua moved in for the finish, uncorking a huge right hand that blasted Ruiz right across the jaw.
The end looked near for Ruiz, and the world clung to the anticipation of another stoppage from the unified heavyweight champion.
But just as quickly as Joshua produced the knockdown in that third round, Ruiz turned the tide with the perfect punch. It happened when Ruiz ducked under a right hook attempt from Joshua and banged the champ's temple with a left hook. A few punches later and Joshua tasted the canvas in an incredible shift of events, paving the way for three more knockdowns and the 15:1 underdog cementing a seventh-round TKO.
The likes of Mike Tyson, Sylvester Stallone, Evander Holyfield, James "Buster" Douglas and more look back on Ruiz's fight-changing punch in DAZN's "One Night," revisiting the historic June 1 evening that the "Destroyer" defied odds to become world champ at Madison Square Garden. The documentary was also produced with Stallone's Balboa Productions.
Ruiz snatching the momentum with that perfectly-placed thudding punch to Joshua's head, instantly turning the British boxer's legs into jelly, is a focal point in the documentary.
"His equilibrium. That's your equilibrium," Tyson says in the "One Night" documentary, pointing to the side of his head in reference to the spot where Joshua got hit. "He's OK (mentally). His body's f—ed up. He never got hit like that before."
A few punches shockingly put Joshua down seconds later.
"Wham!" Stallone says. "Down."
Tyson added: "This motherf—er came to fight tonight."
Another boxing legend, Sugar Ray Leonard, spoke for the world in saying: "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
On his hands and knees, Joshua tried to steady himself, but was very much still on wobbly legs.
"This never happened to him before," Tyson comments, analyzing the moment further. "He's never been hurt before. He's never been in that situation before, and it's kind of scary and you kind of panic a little bit.
"He's conscious, everything is cool ... his body is not responding. He can't do nothing. His body is all messed up."
Tyson was spot on, as Ruiz used a barrage of punches to drop Joshua for the second time in the third round. Although Joshua survived the fourth round and was seemingly getting his legs back over the next two frames, Ruiz scored two more knockdowns en route to the seventh-round TKO to enjoy a coronation as the new king of the ring.
Ruiz will defend his titles for the first time Dec. 7, when he faces Joshua in the rematch in Saudi Arabia on DAZN.