Former world heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr has promised to continue his boxing career after suffering a comeback defeat to Poland’s Damian Knyba at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Ruiz, who famously defeated Britain’s Anthony Joshua seven years ago to claim world titles, was outpointed over 10 rounds by Knyba in what was only his fourth bout since losing the rematch to Joshua in December 2019.<\/p>\n
Ruiz appeared to struggle with ring rust and was knocked down in the seventh round before surviving to the final bell. He ultimately lost on all three scorecards, with judges ruling 117-110, 114-113 and 114-113 for Knyba, whose record improved to 18 wins and one defeat.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, Ruiz was quick to call for a rematch. “I think he was just holding too much,” Ruiz said. “Every time I tried to come forward, he’d hold me tight and I couldn’t throw my combinations. He had a good game plan, but I want to run it back and do things differently.”<\/p>\n
Ruiz, who recently signed with British promoter Eddie Hearn, admitted he has been rusty during a long layoff from competition. He made his previous appearance in August 2024 when he drew with American Jarrell Miller.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want an easy opponent, which is why I took Damian Knyba. He’s a big, tough guy, but we have to take risks. I still have it in me. I just need to stay active and fight again,” Ruiz added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr says he will keep fighting after losing to Damian Knyba in New Jersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1813,946,1816,1814,1815,627],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-andy-ruiz-jr","tag-boxing","tag-comeback","tag-damian-knyba","tag-heavyweight","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}