Viviana Ruiz: “Inside a boxing gym it doesn’t matter who you are. You can have no money or all the money in the world but you are treated the exact same way.”

Viviana Ruiz: “Inside a boxing gym it doesn’t matter who you are. You can have no money or all the money in the world but you are treated the exact same way.”

To succeed in any sport the golden rule is usually to start early. Viviana Ruiz didn’t get the memo.

Over Zoom, Ruiz told me despite having no history of fighting in her family, even her initial entry into boxing was met with lofty ambitious expectations:

“I started my boxing career when I was 32. I never did any other form of martial arts before either because in Columbia we are not into that we are more into football. I said I want to go to the Olympics, tell me what to do. I was told I was too old to box.”

Ruiz spent her early life in Columbia before moving to Australia in 2009. Life was unforgiving in Bogata. A tough life in a dangerous city, but Ruiz got used to surviving many things in her life. Resiliency a much-needed attribute, was developed over time. In many ways, it came in useful. From the get-go, Ruiz suffered from resentment and prejudice.

Boxing came into her life at the perfect time. Struggling in her new country, and unable to speak English, Ruiz was drifting and wasting her life. Ruiz needed direction. She found it in boxing:

“I started boxing because when I moved to Australia from Columbia, families back home are in general really big. There could be 60 cousins, 30 Aunties say, our families are just huge. And then you come to a country where first of all you don’t speak the language. And you come to the country all by yourself as well, so the cultural change is really big. So obviously you start getting a bit depressed and you don’t know what to do and in Australia, people like to party a lot. So you get used to partying a lot, drinking, and smoking.”

Boxing found Ruiz at just the right time in her life. In debt, and having no real purpose in her life, boxing almost certainly saved another lost soul. Walking aimlessly through Sydney, a glance without aim, changed the course of her life. Almost from the start, a love affair was born:

“My family doesn’t have a lot of money so nobody could give me any real support. So I came to Australia with huge debts to three different banks. So one day I thought what am I doing, I am not doing anything. So one day I was walking through the streets of Sydney and I saw this boxing gym. I went for my first class and I loved how the boxing community just captures you. I am speaking from my own experience of course, inside a boxing gym it doesn’t matter who you are. You can have no money or all the money in the world but you are treated the exact same way. That was exactly what I needed and that first class really impacted my life. I finally felt part of something.”

Before the move to Australia, Ruiz studied hard in Columbia and got the just qualifications. Work was found and a good job secured, but she wasn’t happy. Ruiz looked for something new. But life in Australia was difficult, without the correct paperwork, finding a job was practically impossible:

“I have got a degree in telecommunications and I have a diploma in network security. I studied back home for a long time, 7-8 years. But when you come to Australia you get a student visa, but you can’t work, you have to have a residency. So it is really hard to find a job. I studied as an engineer for 5 years back home. I then got a work placement for 6 months and they loved me. So I got a really good role within that company as an engineer and in less than a year I was managing but I feel I was too young. I was 25, I’d just come out of university so I had no experience. I was in a very high-level role and I just thought it was too much for me. Australia is always looking for people to migrate there, I saw an advertisement for it, so it came at the right moment for me. I started getting emails about it, so I thought OK.”

Ruiz had little time to waste in her new career. A late start meant she had to move fast and she did. A natural talent got her noticed and wins and titles came quickly. But Ruiz had to navigate her way past the boxing politics that are probably even riper in the unpaid ranks. She won the big fights but never get her reward, dodgy decisions over the more favoured fighters. A familiar story that I hear many times. Fights that Ruiz claimed were not even close, but still, the fighter in the opposite corner had her hand raised. But despite her late start in the sport, Ruiz had 60 amateur fights, was a five-time State champion and a two-time Australian champion. But frustrated by the politics and the often unfairness of her sport, Ruiz needed a break from boxing. A few months being removed from it helped, but something much deeper had an impact also:

“It’s very racist at times. Being Latino in Australia doesn’t help at all. I have had spectators scream at me saying we don’t want foreigners here.” Words that even over Zoom were hard to say. Some things never change. They should.

Even when she returned to boxing and finally got her just reward and qualified for the world championships in India. Her battle wasn’t over. Flights to pre-championship tournaments were already booked in the favoured fighters’ name. Ruiz had to beg and borrow to go but she had to pay her own way. She won Gold at the Boxam event in Spain, but when she failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, Ruiz decided enough was enough and turned professional. A defeat to Kristy Harris, which left her with a silver medal in the Olympic qualifiers was for once, a loss without complaint. Ruiz decided it was time to turn professional.

But the frustrations were not over for Ruiz. When Covid hit the world for six, everything stopped and Ruiz was left kicking her heels on the sidelines waiting for the world to start turning over again before she could make her professional debut. But the debut finally came last year, and now she is six fights in, one early setback the only loss on her resume. Jacinta Austin, a natural bantamweight beat her by split-decision in her second fight. A learning fight in many ways. The loss to Austin prompted Ruiz to return to Columbia to fast-track her career. Four months, four fights, four wins, a national title at flyweight and Ruiz is now targeting world titles.

“I am trying to fight the WBA and IBF champions at flyweight or super-flyweight. There are no formal talks as yet, but I am ready. I have had 60 amateur fights, and I have fought all over the world. I have fought Olympians and Commonwealth champions. I know how good I am.”

The myth that boxing is laced with untold riches couldn’t be further from the truth. Ruiz knows this better than most:

“I don’t have any sponsors. My partner said look we have got some savings it’s now or never. He said I’ll stay here and support your however I can, but you need to go back to Columbia and do something about your career because in Australia it is hard to find opponents because they don’t want to fight me. Nobody wants to fight me.”

Nothing seems to come easy for a fighter who is used to doing it the hard way. Conventional seems to be an alien word for Ruiz. With no gym and no coach, Ruiz not for the first time in her life had to improvise:

“I didn’t really have a gym to go to, there was a gym nearby but they didn’t really know how to coach. So I ended up being coached by my boyfriend over Zoom. So I was training myself on the phone with my boyfriend helping me. We got in touch with a coach from another city, so he started helping me.”

Ruiz quickly found herself a fight. But as ever, it didn’t go according to plan. Like something out of a film, Ruiz had another experience which needed resolve. And more:

“In my first fight in Columbia I was the main event, and my coach had another girl on the card, and she lost, and I saw my coach leaving the building. I hadn’t even got my hands wrapped at this stage. So I went outside and saw a man with a backpack, and asked him if he was a coach and would he corner me, thankfully he did. Columbia isn’t very safe at times. There was a fight somewhere in the crowd and someone opened a pepper spray. So they had to stop the fight and open the windows, it was crazy, I had my head outside of a window.”

Ruiz 39, has targets in mind in that chase for world title glory. The unbeaten Argentinian pair Leonela Paola Yudica and Clara Lescurat are of particular interest. Lescurat the WBA super-flyweight champion and Yudica the long-reigning IBF flyweight champion are the immediate aims for Ruiz. Many things might be against Ruiz. But she feels ready to grab any opportunity that presents itself. She has been doubted many times in her life, and winning a world title would be the perfect way to send a message to anyone who has doubted her in the past. Don’t rule it out.