Boxing Challenge: Knyba upsets Ruiz

         In Newark, New Jersey, former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz's comeback stumbled from the start as Damian Knyba won a much closer-than-it-should-have-been unanimous decision.

The 6'7 Knyba danced on his toes for most of the fight and pounded Ruiz consistently with his jab.

Knyba dropped Ruiz in the seventh, and the fight could have arguably been stopped, but Ruiz deserves credit for surviving and even winning a few rounds later in the fight.

The scores were bad, with Knyba winning 117-110 (my score was 116-111) and by two scores of 114-113, which means that without the seventh-round knockdown, the fight would have been scored a majority draw and would have been a horrible result.

Knyba will likely move on to an eliminator of some sort, while Ruiz looks like a fighter far past his prime and might want to consider retirement.

Middleweight Vito Mielnicki scored the biggest win of his career with a dominant unanimous decision over former title challenger Austin "Ammo" Williams in the co-feature, scoring a knockdown and winning by scores of 98-91 on all three scorecards.

In Ireland, the IBF's top welterweight contender Paddy Donovan stopped countryman Tyrone McKenna on cuts in the fifth round.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 101 pts (2)

Ramon Malpica; 87 Pts (3)

Vince Samano: 60 Pts (0)