Can Andy Ruiz Jr. Write One More Miracle?

Article by Joseph Herron of War A Week Boxing

There are comeback stories.

Then there are stories that seem almost too perfectly written for Hollywood.

Andy Ruiz Jr. is attempting to write one of the latter.

Tonight at Prudential Center in Newark, the former unified heavyweight champion returns to the ring against towering Polish heavyweight Damian Knyba, hoping to begin a journey that would have seemed almost unimaginable only a few years ago.

Ruiz is 36 years old. He has been away from the ring for more than two years. His career has been interrupted by inactivity, inconsistency and the kind of personal and professional turbulence that can quietly derail even the most talented fighter.

Yet somehow, “The Destroyer” remains standing.

And more importantly, he believes he has finally rediscovered the man who became heavyweight champion of the world.

The parallels to his extraordinary 2019 Cinderella story are impossible to ignore.

Six years ago, Ruiz wasn’t even supposed to be fighting Anthony Joshua.

After Jarrell Miller was removed from the scheduled June 1 bout because of failed drug tests, Ruiz was brought in as a late replacement for Joshua’s American debut at Madison Square Garden. Virtually nobody expected the 29-year-old underdog to do anything more than collect a respectable payday.

Instead, Ruiz walked into Madison Square Garden and changed heavyweight history.

He climbed off the canvas, dropped Joshua four times and stopped the previously unified champion in the seventh round.

The improbable had happened.

The unlikely challenger had become the unified heavyweight champion of the world.

But what followed became nearly as famous as the upset itself.

Ruiz lost the rematch six months later and struggled to reproduce the discipline and consistency that had carried him to the championship.

His career never completely disappeared, but the momentum did.

And eventually, so did the activity.

His last fight before tonight came in August 2024, when he fought Jarrell Miller to a majority draw.

Then came more than two years away from the ring. In fact, Ruiz has only fought three times over the past half decade.

For most fighters, that would be the beginning of the end.

For Ruiz, it appears to have become the beginning of something else.

A reset.

A physical transformation.

A reunion with Manny Robles, the trainer who helped guide him to the greatest victory of his career.

And a renewed spiritual commitment.

Ruiz has spoken openly about becoming more disciplined, more dedicated and more hungry. He has publicly marked his renewed commitment to Christ through baptism and has repeatedly discussed the importance of faith, family and changing the way he approaches his life and career.

Perhaps most revealingly, Ruiz has acknowledged that he did not do everything correctly after becoming champion.

Now he believes he has another opportunity.

But tonight’s opponent is anything but a soft landing.

Damian Knyba stands 6-foot-7 and possesses the physical dimensions that have made him an intriguing heavyweight prospect. He is 17-1 with 11 knockouts and is coming off a competitive but losing battle with Agit Kabayel, the current WBC heavyweight champion.

But there is a remarkable wrinkle to this particular matchup.

Knyba has been preparing with Anthony Joshua.

The Polish heavyweight had been training alongside Joshua in Madrid when the opportunity to face Ruiz materialized. Joshua, of course, knows Ruiz better than almost anyone on earth.

Joshua was preparing for Ruiz in 2019.

Now Knyba has been preparing for Ruiz while Joshua has been helping him prepare for the very man who once turned Joshua’s world upside down.

Knyba has acknowledged studying both Joshua-Ruiz fights and receiving advice from Joshua about how to approach the former champion.

There is something almost poetic about that.

The man who once shocked Joshua is now competing against the fighter AJ has been helping prepare.

However, Ruiz isn’t the same fighter who walked into Madison Square Garden in 2019, and that may be the greatest question surrounding tonight’s fight.

Which Andy Ruiz Jr. is going to walk through that ring?

The fighter who defeated Anthony Joshua possessed remarkable hand speed for a heavyweight, exceptional combination punching and an uncanny ability to make much larger men pay dearly when they underestimated him.

But the Ruiz who emerged after becoming champion struggled to maintain the discipline required at the highest level.

That is why tonight isn’t simply about whether Ruiz can still punch.

Everyone knows he can.

It isn’t simply about whether he can still compete.

He almost certainly can.

The question is whether he can sustain the discipline, conditioning and commitment necessary to begin climbing the heavyweight mountain once again.

And remarkably, Ruiz has given boxing fans some evidence that something has indeed changed.

He has lost approximately 43 pounds from his heaviest period and weighed 254.3 pounds at Thursday’s weigh-in, his lightest official weight since 2018.

He has reunited with Robles.

He has returned to a team he trusts.

He has spoken repeatedly about discipline.

And he has publicly placed his faith at the center of his renewed life.

But none of that guarantees victory.

Boxing doesn’t work that way.

Faith doesn’t make an opponent miss.

renewed body and mind doesn’t automatically make a fighter young again.

And a great comeback story doesn’t count as a round on the judges’ scorecards.

Knyba will still be 6-foot-7.

He will still have the reach.

He will still have the ambition.

And he will still have an entire Polish community behind him inside Prudential Center.

For Ruiz, the path is likely going to require him to do what he has always done best: get inside, make the bigger man uncomfortable and turn the fight into a contest of timing, hand speed, angles and combinations.

But tonight’s opponent has been studying the blueprint.

And somewhere in Knyba’s corner will be the experience of a former champion who knows exactly what happened the last time Andy Ruiz Jr. walked into the ring as the underdog.

That makes tonight more than a comeback.

It is an examination.

Can Ruiz still compete with a legitimate heavyweight contender?

Can his body withstand the demands of a twelve-round fight?

Can the discipline he speaks about translate when the bell rings?

And perhaps most importantly, can the spiritual and personal renewal Ruiz says he has experienced produce the professional rebirth he desperately needs?

At 36, the window isn’t getting larger.

Ruiz turns 37 on September 11th.

The heavyweight division is not waiting.

If he loses tonight, the possibility of another championship run becomes considerably more difficult to imagine.

But if he wins—and wins impressively—the story changes immediately.

Suddenly, the former unified champion isn’t merely making a nostalgic return.

He’s climbing the mountain again.

And perhaps that is why Andy Ruiz Jr. remains such a compelling figure in heavyweight boxing.

He has already proved the impossible can happen.

He has already walked into the ring when almost nobody believed in him and walked out a champion.

He has already fallen from the summit.

Now he is attempting something arguably more difficult.