Damian Knyba outboxes Andy Ruiz Jr. in lopsided decision at Prudential Center
Michael Huezo
Host · Writer
NEWARK, NJ — Andy Ruiz Jr. wanted to make a comeback statement. He got a lesson instead.
The former unified heavyweight champion returned to the ring for the first time in over two years on Friday night at Prudential Center, and Damian Knyba made him pay for the rust. The 6-foot-7 Pole used his 86-inch reach to jab, move and frustrate Ruiz for twelve rounds, dropping him in the seventh and cruising to a unanimous decision, 117-110, 114-113, 114-113.
The building was loud from the jump. “Jefe de Jefes” by Los Tigres del Norte blared as Ruiz made his walk, and “Let’s go Andy” chants rattled the arena before the opening bell. But once the fight started, the size gap was impossible to ignore. Knyba towered over Ruiz at center ring, and he treated the early rounds like a chess match, pawing with the jab to feel out how much Ruiz had left.
That patience defined the fight. Manny Robles pleaded with Ruiz between rounds to keep working the body, to cut the distance, to find rhythm. Ruiz tried, but Knyba’s jab kept finding the range first. Round after round, he boxed behind it, refusing to engage in the kind of firefight that has always been Ruiz’s calling card.
Then came round seven. A heavy right hand wobbled Ruiz, and Knyba followed with a flurry of punches that put him on the canvas. Ruiz barely beat the count and somehow survived a frantic final exchange as the bell saved him. It was the closest the fight came to ending early, and for a moment it looked like the layoff had caught up to him for good.
Ruiz had other ideas. He came out for round eight looking like a different fighter, landing a hard right hand that snapped Knyba’s head back and had him on his heels. He backed it up in round nine, banking two of his best rounds of the night and giving the Prudential Center crowd something to chant about. “Si se puede” (“it can be done”) echoed through the building as fans tried to will him to a finish.
It wasn’t enough to change the shape of the fight. Knyba reasserted control in the championship rounds, sticking to the game plan his corner had drilled into him: keep the jab working, stay off the ropes, don’t take chances. Robles’ message from the stool grew more urgent by the round, telling Ruiz he needed to move his head, find a rhythm, do something. Ruiz never found the answer. Knyba closed the show the way he opened it, behind the jab, and left with a hard-fought but unspectacular win.
On the TNT panel, Timothy Bradley wondered aloud why Ruiz didn’t lean harder on the body attack that had briefly worked for him. Shawn Porter Jr. pushed back on any notion that Ruiz mailed it in, crediting him for fighting to win rather than just collecting a check. Bud Crawford gave Knyba his due for sticking to the plan and using his length to keep Ruiz at the end of his punches all night.
Ring announcer David Diamante made it official, and Chris Mannix got Ruiz’s first reaction in the ring. “I think it was him holding and not being able to get my combinations,” Ruiz said when asked what went wrong. He wasn’t ready to call it a career. “We fought a great fighter. I had to take a risk but I’m not done,” he said, adding that he plans to stay active and get back in the ring soon.
The co-main event delivered its own message. Vito Mielnicki Jr. picked up a win over Austin Williams in the middleweight bout, continuing to build his case as one of the sport’s rising prospects on a card that was billed as Ruiz’s stage.
For Ruiz, the loss drops his record and raises the same question that follows every veteran coming off a long layoff: is there anything left in the tank, or was Friday night proof that the division has simply moved past him? Ruiz insists the answer is the former. Now he has to go prove it.
