Category: Boxing

• Aziz Abdul faces England’s Damar Thomas in Glasgow

• ‘I will be the baddest man in the Commonwealth’

Damar Thomas, the English super-heavyweight, must overcome the grandson of Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator and self-proclaimed “King of Scotland”, if he is to progress into the medal rounds of Commonwealth Games boxing competition in Glasgow on Wednesday.

Aziz Abdul, known as “Ringo”, is not shy of his family connection to Amin, a brutal military dictator who seized power in 1971, killing up to 500,000 people and expelling Uganda’s entire Asian population before he was deposed and sent into exile eight years later.

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Joshua’s lack of punch resistance is clear, which could place him in danger in the highly anticipated £150m fight with Tyson Fury

The bedlam and madness lasted for just five minutes and 43 seconds and, after Anthony Joshua was back in the sanctuary of his dressing room, he claimed to have learned “a valuable lesson”. Joshua had been knocked down twice by Kristian Prenga before he rescued himself in the second round with a brutal stoppage of the previously obscure Albanian.

Joshua also looked ahead to the hugely anticipated fight with Tyson Fury after the two faded former world champions came through wildly contrasting bouts which were meant to be routine exhibitions this weekend. “I’m gonna come back stronger now,” Joshua claimed as he tried to clear the concussive fog from his brain after the worst round of his tumultuous career.

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• Australian wins on points in middleweight bout in Sydney

• American bows out of boxing to ‘live that family life’

Tim Tszyu has restored his global reputation with a rousing victory over the US great Errol Spence Jr in the pair’s middleweight blockbuster in Sydney.

Rebranded as “the Phoenix”, Australia’s former WBO world champion rose again in front of a raucous sellout crowd at Afterpay Arena on Sunday to rocket back to prominence.

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• Briton on canvas inside 20 seconds and later in first

• Joshua recovers to blast out Albanian in second round

Anthony Joshua cleared his final hurdle in the ring, before he fights Tyson Fury in November, but he was knocked down twice, shockingly, in the first round of his wild and chaotic bout with Kristian Prenga. In the early hours of Sunday morning in Jeddah, a devastating knockout in the second left Prenga crumpled in a heap on the canvas, wrapped up in the ropes, and rescued Joshua from humiliation.

After the opening three minutes his extravaganza with Fury looked as if it was about to end in abject ruins but Joshua pulled himself out of a dark pit streaked with defeat to salvage his career – and his much-hyped fight with his British compatriot. This was a crazy firefight of a tune-up for Joshua, who was boxing for the first time since being injured in the car accident that took the lives of two of his closest friends, Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, last December.

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• Fight in Pattaya, Thailand had no live broadcast

• Anthony Joshua faces Kristian Prenga on Saturday

Tyson Fury fulfilled his side of the bargain for a potential heavyweight blockbuster against Anthony Joshua by stopping the veteran Polish fighter Mariusz Wach in Pattaya, Thailand.

About 1,500 fans watched the bout, which had no live broadcast, and saw Fury largely dominate his overmatched 46-year-old opponent, who slipped to an eighth defeat in his past 11 contests. While Wach remained upright, he was pulled out after the end of the seventh round by his corner, battered into submission by Fury, who made it back-to-back wins in 2026 after a 16-month layoff.

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British heavyweights return to the ring this weekend and face low-risk opponents in run-up to long-trailed bout

Tyson Fury has won one fight in the past two years and nine months. Anthony Joshua, meanwhile, has enjoyed a solitary victory over the past two years and four months. Fury outpointed Arslanbek Makhmudov, the lumbering Russian heavyweight, in April while Joshua laboured through five torpid rounds before he finally cut loose and broke the jaw of Jake Paul, the former YouTuber, in December.

Their three defeats during this period are more vivid in the memory. Fury lost twice to Oleksandr Usyk – in May and December 2024 – while Joshua was knocked down four times and then stopped by Daniel Dubois inside five humiliating rounds in September that year. Despite the ravages of age, framed by yet another retirement for Fury and a traumatic period of inactivity for Joshua, they remain on course to fight each other in a showdown that will generate much more than $100m in November.

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• Ukrainian will give up three world heavyweight titles

• ‘I’m not leaving the sport … I still have my last dance’

The world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has announced he will relinquish his title belts. The Ukrainian currently holds the WBC, WBA and IBF versions.

The unbeaten 39-year-old insists he is not retiring but says the “well-considered” decision will “open new opportunities”.

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• Former boxing world champion to appear in court in July

• Cordina’s WBO bout against Abdullah Mason called off

The former boxing world champion Joe Cordina has been charged with “assault and threatening a person with an offensive weapon” after an incident at a petrol station in a Cardiff suburb in February.

The 34-year-old, a two-time IBF super-featherweight champion who was due to face Abdullah Mason for the WBO lightweight title next month, is set to appear at Cardiff magistrates court on 7 July.

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Ahead of Saturday’s title unification fight in Brooklyn, the unbeaten American talks about family legacy, putting on for North Philly and life as one of boxing’s most feared fighters

For years, boxing’s chattering class has treated Jaron “Boots” Ennis less like a champion than a prophecy. The next great one. The future pound-for-pound king. The fighter who one day would justify the steady hype that has followed him since he emerged as a teenager from Bozy’s Dungeon in North Philadelphia as one of the country’s top amateurs.

Even now, undefeated in 36 professional fights with 31 knockouts and world championships at two different weights, Ennis approaches Saturday night’s title unification bout with Xander Zayas at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in an unusual position: celebrated as one of the world’s most gifted fighters while still being discussed as though his breakthrough lies ahead.

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• Boxer could face 20 years in jail if found guilty

• Mayweather’s attorney has not commented

Floyd Mayweather is facing two felony charges over allegations he used a bad check to buy a $200,000 watch in 2024.

The charges are for theft and intent to defraud. The theft charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in jail if someone is found guilty, although sentences of that length for the offense are rare.

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• Addresses media for first time since losing friends in car accident

• Former world champion to return to ring in tune-up for Tyson Fury bout

Anthony Joshua has stressed that rather than coming to terms with his own grief after the car accident in which two of his closest friends died last December, his primary focus has been on helping their parents. As he prepares to resume his career next month, Joshua said: “I’m just there for their parents. Number one is being a good soldier for them. Gotta look after the boys’ parents.”

Asked if he had felt compelled to bury his pain since he was injured in the accident in Nigeria which took the lives of Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, Joshua said: “Everyone’s different. Me, I have to put my emotions to the side because I focus on the parents. My emotions can come at a later stage. I really look at the parents and I understand it must be most difficult for them. So I don’t make it about me, I make it about them. I make it about the mums and the dads of the two boys.”

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• Converted kickboxer takes unified champion deep in WBC title bout

• End of round bell may have rung before referee stopped fight

Rico Verhoeven, the Dutch former kickboxer who has switched to boxing, wants an apology as well as a rematch, after being stopped one second before the end of the penultimate round in a WBC title bout with unified world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday.

The stoppage was controversial, with Verhoeven feeling he could have continued and some replays suggesting the bell may have rung before the referee signalled the end of the fight — only Verhoeven’s second since switching to boxing — at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

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• Ukrainian keeps unbeaten record with 11th-round TKO

• Dutch kickboxing great threatened to cause huge upset

Oleksandr Usyk, Ukraine’s unbeaten heavyweight world champion, stopped the Dutch former kickboxer Rico Verhoeven with one second remaining in the penultimate round to avoid what would have been one of the greatest boxing upsets of all time on Saturday.

The WBC title fight at the Pyramids of Giza was considered a mismatch but Verhoeven, whose sole previous professional boxing fight was 12 years ago, tore up the script in mind-boggling fashion from the opening bell and had looked set to win.

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