Boxing

3:40 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Tyson Fury found himself in a familiar role on Tuesday in London. The heavyweight champion carried the promotion ahead of his trilogy fight against Deontay Wilder last year, as the challenger refused to answer questions from the media at the kick-off news conference. And now, for the second consecutive bout,

12:53 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has joined a territorial defense battalion in Ukraine as the nation seeks to defend itself against an invasion from Russia that began Thursday. The Olympic gold medalist is the latest boxer to take up arms in Ukraine. Usyk’s longtime friend, Vasiliy Lomachenko, also joined a territorial

8:00 AM ET Timothy Bradley Jr. The result of Saturday’s undisputed junior welterweight championship fight between champion Josh Taylor and challenger Jack Catterall hasn’t sat well with me. The challenger did everything he was supposed to do to win, but the judges handed Taylor a split-decision victory. I watched the fight a second time on

6:53 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Vasiliy Lomachenko, ESPN’s No. 8 pound-for-pound boxer, has joined a territorial defense battalion in Ukraine as the country attempts to fend off an invasion from Russia. The two-time Olympic gold medalist is shown armed in military fatigues in an image posted to his Facebook page on Sunday. The 34-year-old traveled

6:01 PM ET Nick Parkinson Close •Reports on boxing for ESPN.co.uk, as well as several national newspapers•Has been reporting on British boxing for over 15 years•Appears on BoxNation’s Boxing Matters show Lawrence Okolie successfully defended his WBO world cruiserweight title for a second time by a unanimous points decision, but was made to work for

2:34 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Chris Colbert, ESPN’s No. 2-ranked 130-pounder, was slated to challenge for his first world title on Saturday. But after the champion, Roger Gutierrez, tested positive for COVID-19, Colbert (16-1, 6 KOs) was set to stay busy against unheralded late replacement Hector Garcia. In the PBC on Showtime’s main event, Colbert,

10:39 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN The four governing organizations responsible for overseeing boxing title matchups around the world — the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO — announced in a joint statement that they won’t sanction any such bouts in Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine. Currently, two Russians hold major titles. Dmitry Bivol, ESPN’s

6:29 PM ET Nick Parkinson Close •Reports on boxing for ESPN.co.uk, as well as several national newspapers•Has been reporting on British boxing for over 15 years•Appears on BoxNation’s Boxing Matters show Josh Taylor escaped defeat and kept hold of his four world super lightweight titles thanks to a controversial split points decision victory over Jack

8:38 PM ET Mike Coppinger Nick Parkinson Close •Reports on boxing for ESPN.co.uk, as well as several national newspapers•Has been reporting on British boxing for over 15 years•Appears on BoxNation’s Boxing Matters show Coming off a clear decision win over Jose Ramirez in May in which he captured the undisputed junior welterweight championship, Josh Taylor

8:43 PM ET Mikaela Mayer will defend her IBF and WBO junior lightweight titles on April 9 against Jennifer Han, a source told ESPN on Friday. The fight will be Mayer’s first since she defeated Maiva Hamadouche by unanimous decision on Nov. 5 to unify the IBF and WBO crowns. It will be Mayer’s second

1:38 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Canelo Alvarez and Dmitry Bivol have finalized a deal for a May 7 fight for Bivol’s light heavyweight title on DAZN pay-per-view, Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn announced Friday. Alvarez is the undisputed super middleweight champion but will return to 175 pounds for the fight. In his lone light heavyweight bout,

1:44 PM ET Editor’s note: This story was originally published in January. It has been updated to reflect the news that Alvarez will fight Dimitry Bivol on May 7. Canelo Alvarez will return to the ring in May to fight Dimitry Bivol for the WBA light heavyweight title. Canelo is the undisputed super middleweight champion,

2:08 AM ET Sibusiso Zingange claimed the South African Junior Lightweight belt at Africa Boxing on Feb. 24, beating four-time defending champion Phila Mpontshane by unanimous decision over 12 rounds. It wasn’t the only title bout of the night though, as South Africa’s Smangele Hadebe dominated from start to finish to beat Tanzania’s Halima Vunjabei

5:31 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Former heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, plans to take up arms to defend against Russia’s invasion, which began in the early hours Thursday. “It’s already a bloody war,” Klitschko, a Hall of Fame boxer, said Thursday on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.” “… I don’t have

10:00 AM ET Nick Parkinson Close •Reports on boxing for ESPN.co.uk, as well as several national newspapers•Has been reporting on British boxing for over 15 years•Appears on BoxNation’s Boxing Matters show Jack Catterall might be the lesser-known name as he prepares to fight Scotland’s undisputed world champion Josh Taylor on Saturday, but he has shared

7:48 PM ET Terri Harper will need a new opponent for her return to the ring March 12. The former WBC junior lightweight champion made the decision to move to lightweight and was set to make her return against American veteran Heather Hardy. But Hardy posted on Twitter on Wednesday that she is going to

7:51 AM ET Timothy Bradley Jr. Josh Taylor returns home to Scotland to make his first title defense as boxing’s undisputed junior welterweight champion of the world at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow (Saturday on ESPN+, 2 p.m. ET). Taylor (18-0, 13 KOs) faces undefeated Englishman Jack Catterall (26-0, 13 KOs), who previously stepped aside

1:12 AM ET NEW YORK — Amanda Serrano is preparing for the biggest fight of her life and at the same time she has also begun to take steps for the next part of her career. Serrano is putting the finishing touches on signing her first client as a boxing manager, Nicole Ocasio, in conjunction