Going into his fight against Kirk Johnson Saturday night, John Ruiz was once again the underdog. The oddsmakers should have known better. They had, after all, seen Ruiz fight Evander Holyfield to a stalemate over 36 rounds. Of course, all anyone said about the Holyfield fights was that Commander Vander was finally too old to beat even the lowly John Ruizes of the world.

But those who attributed Ruiz' relative success against Holyfield to the ex-champ's advanced age were overlooking something. Prior to his trilogy with Ruiz, Evander had nearly beaten Lennox Lewis, dropping a close unanimous decision to the heavyweight champion. Right after the Ruiz fights Holyfield beat Hassim Rahman, who a year earlier had been heavyweight champ himself. It seems Evander Holyfield became "old" only when he was in the ring with John Ruiz.

Meantime the most impressive fighter Kirk Johnson ever beat was Oleg Maskaev, who seemed formidable at the time, but has since been knocked out by almost everyone he has faced. Oddsmakers nevertheless went with Johnson to beat Ruiz -- I mean, it was only John Ruiz, for crying out loud. He's not that fast, doesn't hit that hard, isn't that big, isn't exceptionally skilled and doesn't take the greatest punch.

So how does Ruiz continue to climb the heavyweight ladder despite fighting talented, top-10 opposition like Evander Holyfield and Kirk Johnson?

Once upon a time John Ruiz could not even survive one round against David Tua. That is ironic, because nowadays, survival is Ruiz's forte. He does not so much defeat his opponents as he survives them. He survived three fights with Holyfield and won enough rounds on the judges scorecards along the way to capture a win and a draw. And on Saturday night he hung around long enough against Johnson for the undefeated Canadian contender to get himself disqualified.

Actually, Johnson did not exactly get himself disqualified. Ruiz gave him ample help. It seemed every time Kirk went to the body, he would find his head being pushed down and his intended body blow landing inadvertently below Ruiz' belt. After essentially forcing the punch low, Ruiz would then sink to the canvass and wait for referee Joe Cortez to issue his warnings, or penalize Johnson, which Cortez did to the tune of two points on the scorecards. Ruiz' nickname should not be "The Quiet Man," it should be "The Opportunist." Once he got the low blow theme going he milked it for all it was worth.

In between trips to the canvas Ruiz won half the rounds more or less (a little less), and, more importantly, snuck in a beautiful straight right hand that had Johnson badly hurt at the end of the ninth. It was the same sneaky right that dropped Holyfield and had him nearly out in the 11th round of his rematch with Ruiz.

No, Ruiz is not a big puncher, but it isn't like he can't punch. No, he does not possess great handspeed, but he also isn't slow. No, he's not that big, but he's not usually outsized by his opponent. No, he is not as skillful as boxing master Chris Byrd, but he is not without skill. And no, he does not take a great punch, but then he takes a pretty good one, and besides, he does not get hit all that much. He is promoted by Don King, he is an opportunist and a survivor, and he is now no worse than the fourth-ranked heavyweight in the world. My heavyweight rankings:

Champ: Lennox Lewis
1. Wladimir Klitschko
2. Chris Byrd
3. Evander Holyfield
4. John Ruiz
5. Jameel McCline
6. David Tua
7. Hassim Rahman
8. Mike Tyson
9. Kirk Johnson
10. Vitali Klitschko

Before too long Ruiz might actually survive his way to a fight for the heavyweight championship of the world. Should that day come, we will see just what kind of survivor John Ruiz really is. The guess here is that he survives Lennox Lewis. For a round or two.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights.