{"id":34577,"date":"2026-09-05T13:36:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T13:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/andy-ruiz-jr-ex-world-champion-loses-to-polands-damian-knyba\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T13:36:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T13:36:50","slug":"andy-ruiz-jr-ex-world-champion-loses-to-polands-damian-knyba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/andy-ruiz-jr-ex-world-champion-loses-to-polands-damian-knyba\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Ruiz Jr: Ex-world champion loses to Poland&#8217;s Damian Knyba"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Former world champion Andy Ruiz Jr has vowed to carry on after losing his comeback fight to Poland&#8217;s Damian Knyba in New Jersey. <\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 36-year-old heavyweight <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/48487939\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">shocked the boxing world<\/a> seven years ago by beating Britain&#8217;s Anthony Joshua to take his world titles. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ruiz Jr has since been beset by injuries and was taking part in just his fourth fight since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/50701313\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">losing the rematch to Joshua<\/a> in December 2019. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He looked a shadow of his former self at the Prudential Center in Newark, saved by the bell after scrambling back to his feet following a knockdown in the seventh, he eventually lost by a unanimous points decision. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Judges scored the fight 117-110, 114-113 and 114-113 in favour of the Pole, who took his record to 18 wins and one defeat, but Ruiz Jr was quick to demand a rematch. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, I think it was just him holding,&#8221; said Ruiz Jr, who recently signed up with British promoter Eddie Hearn. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Every time I tried to come in, he&#8217;d hold me really tight, and I just couldn&#8217;t let my combinations go. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He played a good game plan, but I&#8217;d love to run it back and do things a lot different.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Joshua&#8217;s former conqueror argued that he was simply rusty after taking his first fight since drawing with American Jarrell Miller in August 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was just a long layoff, and it was a great opponent,&#8221; he argued. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I didn&#8217;t want to take an easy fight, so that&#8217;s why I took Damian. He&#8217;s a big guy. But we&#8217;ve got to take risks. I&#8217;ve still got it in me, man. I&#8217;ve just got to stay active and I want to fight again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/cdx0kvpevlko?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former world champion Andy Ruiz Jr has vowed to carry on after losing his comeback fight to Poland&#8217;s Damian Knyba in New Jersey. The 36-year-old heavyweight shocked the boxing world seven years ago by beating Britain&#8217;s Anthony Joshua to take his world titles. Ruiz Jr has since been beset by injuries and was taking part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34579,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34577\/revisions\/34579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}