Andy Ruiz Jr’s latest comeback bid was left in tatters on Friday night after the former unified heavyweight champion was knocked down, systematically dismantled, and handed a sobering unanimous-decision defeat by Poland’s Damian Knyba at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Knyba secured victory on the judges’ scorecards with tallies of 117-110 and a pair of 114-113 cards, handing Ruiz the third defeat of his professional career and dealing a devastating, perhaps fatal blow to his hopes of becoming a two-time champion in boxing’s most prestigious division. The baffling pair of 114-113 cards flattered Ruiz considerably and bore little relation to the mostly one-way traffic that unfolded over 12 rounds, with observers like The Guardian scoring the bout a more accurate 117-110 in favor of the winner.
“This feeling is so amazing,” the New Jersey-based Pole said afterwards through a translator, reflecting on the biggest win of his career. “Not many people in the world can feel what I’m feeling right now.”
Ruiz, who holds a professional record of 35-3-1 with 22 knockouts, turns 37 the following week and was returning from a grueling 762-day layoff. Throughout most of the night, he cut a lamentable figure inside the ring. His once-blurring combinations carried precious little of their old snap, and his head remained almost entirely stationary as the 30-year-old Knyba’s long jab found its target time and time again. By the end of 12 dispiriting rounds at the home of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, the veteran looked less like a contender launching one final, glorious climb toward the summit of the heavyweight division and more like a shot fighter badly compromised by inactivity and chronic injury.
Seven years ago, Ruiz authored one of the greatest upsets in boxing history at Madison Square Garden. Climbing off the canvas, he stunned the previously undefeated Anthony Joshua by knocking him down four times before forcing a stoppage in the seventh round, thereby becoming the first fighter of Mexican descent to win a world heavyweight title. Yet, barely six months later, the fairy tale came to an abrupt and messy end. Following months of excessive partying and an abbreviated training camp, Ruiz arrived for the immediate rematch 15 pounds heavier and completely surrendered the unified titles back to Joshua in a listless, tactical points defeat in Saudi Arabia, effectively ending his unlikely championship reign after just 190 days.
For Ruiz, who had fought only three times in more than six years leading up to Friday, the bout was meant to mark the promising beginning of one last run at a world title. That goal suddenly appeared within reach with 39-year-old Oleksandr Usyk preparing to exit the stage and vacate his belts. Instead, Ruiz spent most of the night plodding after the towering 6ft 7in Knyba, entirely unable to access the blinding hand speed or explosive footwork required to overcome the enormous physical disparity. There was little discernible power behind his punches and even less of the explosive drive through his legs that once gave his offense such menace—shortcomings that were perhaps an inevitable consequence of his previously surgically repaired right knee.
For the opening six rounds, the bout proved to be a dour, frustrating display for the pro-Ruiz crowd. Knyba established the tactical pattern early with a long, pawing left jab while continuously moving backward, perfectly content to concede ground without ever allowing Ruiz into comfortable punching range. Whenever Ruiz managed to close the distance, the much taller Pole routinely swallowed him up inside his imposing 86-inch reach, smothering his work and waiting for referee David Franciosi to step in and separate them. Ruiz trudged forward with almost a total lack of head movement, struggling mightily to negotiate the 12-inch difference in reach while absorbing one piston-like jab after another.
The fight suddenly caught fire toward the end of the seventh round when Knyba detonated a sharp, clean one-two combination that badly wobbled the former champion. A fierce follow-up flurry sent Ruiz crashing to the canvas in a dispirited heap. He remained on one knee until the count of eight before hauling himself upright on wobbly legs. By the time the bell sounded moments later to signal the end of the frame, Ruiz had absorbed a punishing volume of blows and appeared virtually out on his feet in his own corner.
“I thought the fight was over,” Knyba admitted after the bout. “I didn’t want to make the same mistake that Anthony Joshua made where he just came onto him recklessly. I wanted to stay disciplined, keep my distance and just keep doing what I was doing.”
Ruiz bravely emerged for the eighth round with his face visibly bruised, reddened, and marked up. For a brief, fleeting moment, the old instincts returned. He managed to catch Knyba, pounding the taller fighter with thudding shots to both the head and the body during what stood as his single best offensive sequence of the entire night. However, the revival proved frustratingly short-lived. Even as a crowd squarely in his corner urged him forward with impassioned chants of “Si se puede!” into the championship rounds, Knyba successfully re-established his distance behind the jab and quickly discovered that Ruiz simply had little left to offer. By the 12th and final round, the Polish heavyweight was casually peppering his visibly depleted foe with unanswered jabs as the final bell approached.
“It was just him holding every time I tried to come in,” Ruiz said of his opponent’s effective spoiling tactics. “He’d hold me really tight and I couldn’t let my combinations go. But he played a good game plan. I’d love to run it back and do things a lot different.”
Before Friday night, another run at the heavyweight crown had looked like more than mere wishful thinking. With the unbeaten Usyk having vacated his remaining championship titles in June, the heavyweight landscape has effectively splintered among Murat Gassiev holding the WBA belt, Agit Kabayel with the WBC, Filip Hrgović owning the IBF, and Daniel Dubois holding the WBO. This fracturing of the division offers any number of viable, lucrative pathways back to the top for a high-profile fighter bearing Ruiz’s name recognition. Even a rubber match with Anthony Joshua, once considered fanciful, had appeared genuinely possible following the Englishman’s anticipated showdown later in the year.
Knyba, holding an 18-1 record with 11 knockouts, saw his lone professional defeat come against Agit Kabayel in January. He was deliberately chosen as a meaningful, high-stakes test rather than a soft re-entry fight for the opening outing of Ruiz’s lucrative three-fight promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing. Promoter Eddie Hearn had stated clearly beforehand that if Ruiz truly harbored genuine intentions of winning another world championship, he needed to prove himself against opponents of this caliber. Instead, against an adversary who had never previously been scheduled beyond eight professional rounds, Ruiz looked entirely ordinary, deeply hittable, and alarmingly short of tactical ideas.
Despite the comprehensive defeat, Ruiz steadfastly refused to concede that the loss had effectively ended his lingering aspirations of securing another world title shot.
“Of course I believe, man,” Ruiz said when asked about his future in the sport. “It was just a long layoff and it was a great opponent. I didn’t want to take an easy fight. That’s why I took Damian. He’s a big guy, but we’ve got to take risks.”
