Boxing News
Cameron beats Mayer by unanimous decision
Briton adds WBC and WBA belts to WBO title
Dubois retains lightweight crowns in co-main
Chantelle Cameron unified the world super-welterweight titles with a battling points win over veteran Mikaela Mayer at the Pulse Live Arena in Birmingham.
The 35-year-old shrugged off a bloody left eye from an accidental head clash to earn clear 97-93 (twice) and 96-94 verdicts on the three judges’ cards.
Continue reading...Croatian claims IBF title after wild comeback
Sam Noakes has scored the biggest win of his career, outclassing former world champion Denys Berinchyk to win a 10-round unanimous decision. The 29-year-old from Kent controlled the fight throughout, winning by scores of 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92.
That’s it for the undercard at the O2. The final countdown to Moses Itauma v Filip Hrgović is on.
Continue reading...Filip Hrgovic singing to the press is a stark contrast to the brooding Briton who is grappling with the blinding lights of fame and glory
Moses Itauma and Filip Hrgovic have presented an intriguing study in contrast this week. The 21-year-old prodigy from Chatham in Kent, of Slovakian and Nigerian descent, has been a thoughtful and slightly brooding presence while the seasoned 34-year-old from Croatia has been full of sunshine and songs.
On Tuesday, Hrgovic burst into a room where a few boxing writers sat and, looking tanned without a shirt beneath his leather gilet, belted out a word-perfect version of Saturday Night at the Movies, a 1965 ditty by the Drifters.
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Continue reading...Before the IBF world heavyweight title clash with Filip Hrgovic on Saturday, Barry Jones and Andy Lee analyse the unbeaten fighter
On Saturday night the 21-year-old Moses Itauma expects to become the second-youngest world heavyweight champion in history, after Mike Tyson, when he fights Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic for the IBF title at the O2 Arena in London. In an attempt to sift through the hype and to assess the potential Itauma has shown, the Guardian asked Barry Jones and Andy Lee for their expert views on the strengths and possible weaknesses of the young British fighter.
Itauma promises to become the dominant new force of the unpredictable heavyweight division but Hrgovic is his first real test as he strives to become a world champion in just his 15th fight.
Continue reading...Promoter says negotiations are subject to a time limit
‘They won’t let it go past the end of next week’
Frank Warren believes that the tortuous negotiations surrounding the proposed fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury are subject to a time limit which will run out by the end of next week. Conceding that he is unsure if the much-delayed bout will happen, Warren also said the decision now depends solely on Joshua and that Fury, whom he promotes, is already in training in the US and ready to fight an alternative opponent in November.
“Nothing’s been signed off as yet,” Warren said in regard to a revised contract for Fury and Joshua to fight in New York. “Everybody’s talking and talking rather than getting on with the business and getting it done. I think it will happen and if it doesn’t, and I think there’s a time limit on it, by the way, it will be one of those fights that slipped by.
Continue reading...Itauma can become second-youngest champion after Mike Tyson
Hrgovic claims title victory for opponent would ‘ruin his soul’
Moses Itauma has hit back at Filip Hrgovic’s taunt that he is a “delusional kid” and admitted that his Croatian rival is starting to annoy him as the two men prepare to fight for the IBF world heavyweight title on Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London.
“I tell myself there’s nothing that this Hrgovic guy can do to get in my head but he’s starting to wind me up,” Itauma said on Tuesday evening. “In an interview earlier, apparently he said I wake up and I just hug trees. He’s really starting to annoy me.
Continue reading...López wins majority decision to claim WBA crown
Romero brands judges’ verdict a ‘robbery’
New champion adds to previous 135lb, 140lb belts
Teófimo López became a three-division world champion on Saturday night, winning a 12-round majority decision over Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero to claim the WBA welterweight title at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
López prevailed by scores of 115-113 and 116-112, while the third judge saw the fight even at 114-114. Romero, making the first defense of his title won against Ryan Garcia 15 months ago, disputed the result in the immediate aftermath.
Continue reading...Boxing’s most mercurial star is putting an old friendship aside as he moves up to 147lb to challenge Rolly Romero for the welterweight title he won against Ryan Garcia
For more than a decade, Teófimo López’s friendship with Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero endured through amateur tournaments, Las Vegas sparring sessions and the mismatched peaks and troughs of two volatile careers. That friendship ended, López says, the moment they signed to fight one another.
On Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena along the Vegas Strip, the 29-year-old López will challenge for Romero’s World Boxing Association welterweight title. The former lightweight and junior-welterweight champion is moving up to 147lb in pursuit of a belt in a third division. For Romero, himself a three-weight belt-holder after stacking titles at 135lb and 140lb, a victory would add another marquee name to a résumé transformed by last year’s upset of Ryan Garcia. The fight will be broadcast globally on Dazn pay-per-view and will see the champion go off as a roughly 2-1 underdog.
Continue reading...The Northampton fighter on beating Katie Taylor, facing Mikaela Mayer and why women’s boxing needs three-minute rounds
Less than two weeks before her world title unification bout against Mikaela Mayer, in a potential fight of the year for women’s boxing, Chantelle Cameron’s memory carries a quietly shocking force. “I was 14 and doing a psychology GCSE when my teacher spoke to me in front of the whole class,” Cameron says. “I don’t know why because I wasn’t a naughty kid. But he just turned round and said I’m going to end up stacking shelves in Tesco with two kids by the time I’m 16. On the inside I was like: ‘Wow. Did he really say that?’”
Cameron is the only woman to have beaten the great Katie Taylor as a pro and she has become a passionate advocate for elite female boxers and their right to fight three-minute rounds – so much so that, last year, she gave up her WBC world title because the sanctioning body suggested women weren’t strong enough to box more than two-minute rounds. She will now defend her WBO world super-welterweight title a week on Saturday against Mayer, the experienced WBC belt-holder.
Continue reading...American stops Sydneysider at 1:38 of sixth round
Shields claims WBA and WBC belts after 38lb cut
Lauren Price identified as preferred next opponent
Claressa Shields completed a remarkable descent from heavyweight to middleweight, stopping Australia’s Kaye Scott in the sixth round to capture the WBA and WBC titles in a fight that went off early Sunday morning at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
The five-division world champion and double Olympic gold medalist dominated her outclassed opponent from the opening bell before dropping Scott in the sixth and overwhelming her against the ropes after the action resumed. With the 42-year-old champion unable to defend herself from another sustained barrage, Scott’s corner threw several towels into the ring and the contest was waved off after 1min 38sec.
Continue reading...Puerto Rican suffered brain bleed in only defeat
WBC blamed illegal blows to back of the head
Colón had won his first 16 professional fights
The boxing world was in mourning Friday following the death of Puerto Rican fighter Prichard Colón at the age of 33, 11 years after he sustained brain damage in the only defeat of his professional career.
Colón’s death was confirmed in statements by the World Boxing Council and the World Boxing Organization late Thursday.
Continue reading...Former Olympic super-heavyweight champion takes satisfaction from changing British boxing for the better, but still wants to train a world champion
“I was the Olympic champion, and I was the next big thing, but the system had to win,” Audley Harrison says as he reflects on his rise and fall as a fighter who changed so much in British boxing while failing to fulfil his grandest ambitions in the ring. Harrison had once been considered a likely successor to Lennox Lewis, the undisputed world heavyweight champion, but he became a figure of ridicule mocked as “Fraudley Harrison”.
He retired in 2013 with a modest 31‑7 record and having never come close to winning the world title many thought would be his inevitable glory when he took gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. But Harrison dragged British boxing fleetingly into the mainstream and ripped up the old traditions of the fight game by managing and promoting himself.
Continue reading...The 21-year-old British boxer has the chance to become the second youngest world heavyweight champion after Mike Tyson when he fights for the IBF crown this month
Moses Itauma was initially unmoved when hearing that his bout against Filip Hrgovic in London on 29 August had been upgraded to a fight for the vacant IBF world heavyweight title.
“I didn’t really have any reaction,” Itauma said on Friday afternoon. “I was like, if I’m fighting Hrgovic and I’ve got the opportunity for it to be a world title, then yeah, chuck it on the line. I didn’t have any other feeling. I was taking Hrgovic serious – and, now the fight is for a world title, I’m still taking him serious. It’s still the same fight, innit?”
Continue reading...‘My provisional suspension is lifted and I’ll be back soon’
British Boxing confirm news but gave no details
Joseph Parker, the former heavyweight world champion, said on Wednesday he had been cleared to fight again after failing a dope test last October. The 34-year-old New Zealander, who held the WBO title from 2016 to 2018, had denied taking a prohibited substance but risked a two-year ban.
He failed the voluntary test on the day he fought and lost to Britain’s Fabio Wardley. Reports at the time indicated that he had tested positive for traces of cocaine.
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