Right Then, Hands Up
Right then. I told you on Thursday that a 254lb Andy Ruiz was levels above Damian Knyba and that he would stop the Pole somewhere between rounds six and eight. Round seven did arrive with a knockdown — it just went the wrong way. Knyba put Ruiz on the canvas, banked the rounds behind that long jab, and walked out of the Prudential Center with a unanimous decision: 117-110, 114-113 and 114-113. Make no mistake, that is the biggest name on any Polish heavyweight's record since the Klitschko era, and Knyba earned every bit of it.
Let's not beat around the bush about what we saw. Ruiz looked slimmer, yes. He looked like a man who had done a camp. But the version of Ruiz that beat Anthony Joshua in 2019 lived on his legs and his hand speed, and neither of them turned up in Newark. He was 36 years old, two years out of the ring, and every time he tried to close the gap Knyba either tied him up or stepped off and jabbed. The scale told a good story. The ring told the truth.
How Knyba Did It
This was not a shock if you had watched Knyba properly before the Agit Kabayel fight. He is 6ft 7in, he is patient, and he understands that a man five inches shorter has to walk through the jab to do any damage. For twelve rounds he made Ruiz pay an entry fee. When Ruiz did get inside, Knyba grabbed, leaned, and made him carry 255lbs on his neck. It is not pretty. It is also exactly what you should do against a short, heavy swarmer who is fighting for the first time in two years.
The Seventh Round
The knockdown was the fight in miniature. Ruiz came forward with his chin up looking for the right hand over the top — the punch that took Joshua apart at Madison Square Garden — and Knyba caught him coming in. Ruiz was up and he survived the round, but from that moment the two close scorecards were out of his reach. A 114-113 with a 10-8 against you means you needed to sweep the back end, and Ruiz simply did not have the engine.
Ruiz Wants A Rematch. He Should Not Get One
Afterwards Ruiz thanked God, thanked Eddie Hearn, and then blamed the holding — "every time I try to come in, he hold me really tight" — before saying he would love to run it back and that "God's not done". I like Andy Ruiz. Everybody likes Andy Ruiz. But this is now three fights in six years, one of them a draw with Jarrell Miller and one of them a loss to a man who was stopped in three rounds by Kabayel in January. Hearn said this week that a good Ruiz could beat Filip Hrgovic, Moses Itauma, Daniel Dubois and Kabayel. That conversation is over. If you know, you know.
Luke's Verdict
I got the pick wrong and I will own it — I trusted the scales over the calendar. The lesson is a simple one: weight comes off, years do not. Ruiz at 35-3-1 should have a long honest think about whether there is anything left worth risking his health for, because the answer from Newark was no. Knyba, now 18-1, has done what Kabayel could not: he has beaten a former unified champion on American television and he has done it his way. Give him a genuine top-ten heavyweight next — a Hrgovic, a Dubois — and I think the Pole loses, but he has earned the right to find out. Keep it on our news page for the heavyweight fallout and tonight's Croke Park farewell for Katie Taylor.