{"id":760664,"date":"2026-09-05T09:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T09:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/760664\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T09:02:09","slug":"andy-ruiz-jr-ex-world-champion-loses-to-polands-damian-knyba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/760664\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Ruiz Jr: Ex-world champion loses to Poland’s Damian Knyba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former world champion Andy Ruiz Jr has vowed to carry on after losing his comeback fight to Poland’s Damian Knyba in New Jersey. <\/p>\n

The 36-year-old heavyweight shocked the boxing world<\/a> seven years ago by beating Britain’s Anthony Joshua to take his world titles. <\/p>\n

Ruiz Jr has since been beset by injuries and was taking part in just his fourth fight since losing the rematch to Joshua<\/a> in December 2019. <\/p>\n

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

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

“I don’t know, I think it was just him holding,” said Ruiz Jr, who recently signed up with British promoter Eddie Hearn. <\/p>\n

“Every time I tried to come in, he’d hold me really tight, and I just couldn’t let my combinations go. <\/p>\n

“He played a good game plan, but I’d love to run it back and do things a lot different.”<\/p>\n

Joshua’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

“It was just a long layoff, and it was a great opponent,” he argued. <\/p>\n

“I didn’t want to take an easy fight, so that’s why I took Damian. He’s a big guy. But we’ve got to take risks. I’ve still got it in me, man. I’ve just got to stay active and I want to fight again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion Andy Ruiz Jr has vowed to carry on after losing his comeback fight to Poland’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-760664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}