Category: Boxing / UFC / MMA

The neurosurgeon saved the boxer’s life in 1991 and since then the pair have become close friends

“This man is my hero,” Michael Watson says simply as he turns to Peter Hamlyn, the neurosurgeon who saved his life and carried out seven operations on the stricken boxer’s brain in the aftermath of his fight against Chris Eubank in September 1991. “We are like family, me and Peter, and we have unusual banter. Peter says I’m a little bit dark to be family.”

Watson chuckles at his friend’s quip but, having interviewed Watson multiple times before and after the fateful bout that pushed him close to death, and having spent the morning with Hamlyn, I sense an essential truth. The brain surgeon and the boxer share a deeply compassionate intent to help each other.

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British Boxing’s trainer of the year is resolute in his commitment to the sport despite contending with stage four bowel and liver cancer

“I am a little scared,” Joe Gallagher says quietly as, in a deserted room upstairs at his famous old gym in Moss Side, Manchester, he addresses the stage four bowel and liver cancer that has taken hold of him. Two hours earlier, while giving me a guided tour of the Champs Camp gym where history and sweat seep from the peeling walls, Gallagher had been in roaring flow.

As six of his fighters shadowboxed each other, feinting and weaving in the crowded ring, the 56-year-old had yelled out instructions. Gallagher looked every inch the proud winner of the Trainer of the Year award – which he received last month at the British Boxing awards. But no matter how hard he works, or how cleverly he tries to find a strategy to overcome the odds, Gallagher has entered dark terrain. He loves the company of his fighters and his family, and appreciates the medical experts who urge him to pay more attention to cancer than boxing, but there are moments when he is alone with the disease.

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The Philadelphia boxer nicknamed Boots, touted as a future pound-for-pound No 1, carries sky-high expectations and an unfinished family legacy into the biggest fight of his life

Bozy’s Dungeon never had a fixed address. For years it was tucked two blocks from the clattering El train in North Philadelphia, past strips of weathered rowhouses and corner stores. These days it sits in a quiet residential stretch of the Great Northeast. The location and sign on the door might change, but inside, it’s always the same: a temple of toughness and repetition, where talk is cheap and fighters are made brick by brick, round after round. The ring is sacred, the rules unwritten but understood: work, wait, and one day, your shot will come. For Jaron Ennis, the amply gifted welterweight from Philly known as Boots, that day arrives Saturday night.

Ennis, the International Boxing Federation’s champion at 147lb, unbeaten over 33 professional fights with 29 wins inside the distance, will put it all on the line under the vaulted ceilings of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall against Eimantas Stanionis, a rugged, come-forward brawler from Lithuania who holds the World Boxing Association’s version of the title. For Ennis, it’s more than a unification bout. It’s a prime opportunity to shed the perception that, despite his immaculate record and world champion status, he remains a fighter on the cusp rather than one firmly established at the top.

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• Tszyu wins IBO superwelterweight title following two shock losses
• Sydney fighter calls out American Keith Thurman for next bout

Tim Tszyu has restored his reputation and reignited his international career with a brutal beatdown of American Joey Spencer in Newcastle.

The referee stopped the fight two minutes and 18 seconds into the fourth round after Australia’s former WBO world champion battered Spencer with a stunning blitz to the head and body.

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• Mayer beats bitter rival Sandy Ryan in points decision
• WBO champion plans to ‘go for undisputed’ against Price

Mikaela Mayer retained her WBO world welterweight title in Las Vegas, beating Britain’s Sandy Ryan by unanimous decision to settle their bitter rivalry.

The American overcame a cut above the eye and Ryan’s rally in the later rounds, winning with judges’ scores of 97-93, 97-93 and 98-92. After her victory, Mayer targeted a title unification bout with another Briton, Lauren Price.

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At the 1968 Olympics, Foreman’s flag-waving was seen as deference if not betrayal. But the reaction to it reveals the limited ways we allow Black athletes to express themselves

When a teenager from Texas named George Foreman waved a tiny American flag in the boxing ring after winning Olympic gold in 1968, he had little awareness of the political minefield beneath his size 15 feet. The moment, captured by television cameras for an audience of millions during one of the most volatile periods in American history, was instantly contrasted with another image from two days earlier at the same Mexico City Games: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, heads bowed and black-gloved fists raised in salute during the US national anthem, a silent act of protest that would become one of the defining visuals of the 20th century. Their message was unmistakable: a rebuke of the country that had sent them to compete while continuing to deny civil rights to people who looked like them. Their action was seen as defiant resistance, Foreman’s as deference to the very systems of oppression they were protesting.

Foreman’s flag-waving, unremarkable in almost any other context, became a lightning rod. For many, especially those aligned with the rising tide of Black Power, the gesture felt tone-deaf at best, an outright betrayal at worst. How could a young Black man, representing a country still brutalizing his own people, celebrate it so enthusiastically? But that reading, while emotionally understandable amid the fevered upheaval of 1968, misses something deeper – about Foreman, about patriotism, and about the burden of symbolic politics laid on the shoulders of Black athletes.

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By forming a new governing body, World Boxing, the Dutchman prevented the sport being banished by the IOC

“It feels like such a sweet week and of course I’m very happy and proud,” Boris van der Vorst says as, in his role as the president and one of the founders of World Boxing, he takes a rare break to reflect on a mighty achievement. Just over two years ago, boxing had been struck off the initial programme for the Los Angeles Games in 2028 and it was about to be banished entirely from the Olympic movement. It was then that Van der Vorst set about establishing a new regulatory body to replace the discredited International Boxing Association.

His work, despite intense pressure, was vindicated when Thomas Bach, the outgoing International Olympic Committee president, announced on Monday that his executive board had recommended boxing’s inclusion in the LA Olympics. The key stipulation was in place, because the IOC recognised World Boxing as the sport’s new regulatory body, and on Thursday Bach’s recommendation was accepted. Boxing was welcomed back into the Olympic fold.

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Former heavyweight champion was always more complex and interesting than his contrasting personae suggested

Boxing seems a smaller and darker world now. George Foreman has gone and, with his death, he takes a little more of the ­fading light and lost glory of the ring with him. My own life in ­boxing, which stretches across 55 years, can be divided into stages and all of them carry markers Foreman left in the dirt and dust of the fight game.

From the malevolent force he ­personified when he became ­heavyweight champion of the world to the lovable old grandad ­making hundreds of millions as the face of a food grill business, Foreman could be easily ­caricatured. But he was always more complex and interesting than his contrasting personae suggested.

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• Ex-cop outpoints Aussie Nicolson for featherweight title
• Brown served as officer in Washington DC and Florida

Former police officer Tiara Brown became WBC world featherweight champion by beating Skye Nicolson in a split-decision victory on Saturday.

The 36-year-old Brown took Nicolson’s belt when judges scored the bout 97-93 and 96-94 in her favor, with one judge scoring it 96-94 for Nicolson.

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A multiple boxing world heavyweight champion who became a pastor, television celebrity and successful entrepreneur

Redemption was a long time coming for George Foreman, and when it finally arrived he grabbed it with both fists.

For years Foreman, who reigned as world heavyweight champion during his division’s greatest era, was forced to act as an antidote to the more popular successes of his main rivals, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

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The American boxing champion, who twice held the world heavyweight championship, has died aged 76. He leaves behind a towering legacy

• Legendary boxer George Foreman dies aged 76

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• Governing body wants rules ready for Brazil tournament
• Investigation sparked by row at Paris Olympics

World Boxing has reached “an advanced stage” of its investigation into the gender eligibility row that blighted the sport at the Olympic Games last year, and expects to announce its findings in a matter of “weeks rather than months”.

Boris van der Vorst, the president of boxing’s governing body that was given a green light on Monday to run the Olympic competition at Los Angeles 2028, said: “There’s no specific timeline, but I expect it within two or three weeks. We want to have it before our next competition in Brazil.” Van der Vorst said all recommendations would need approval by him and the WB board.

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