Category: Boxing

A year and a half after his unstoppable rise was hijacked, the 26-year-old boxing star aims to become a three-weight champion against big-punching Brian Norman Jr

Rain falls in thin, needling lines over Hell’s Kitchen as Devin Haney walks into the Victory Boxing Gym. Somewhere along Ninth Avenue an ambulance threads through the congestion, its siren drawn out into a long, mournful ribbon that slips past the gym’s walls. He nods to a few familiar faces, peels off a Supreme Vanson leather jacket and begins to unwrap himself from the city. His father, Bill, arrives a step behind him, not so much entering the room as taking possession of it.

“The youngest undisputed champion!” Bill cries out, half to the gym, half to himself. “He’s done it on three continents! Twenty-six years old and still writing history! Let the sparks fly!”

Continue reading...

When a prankster meets a puncher it’s not about sport but an elaborate viral hoax that keeps us wanting more

“If it’s all straight up and proper, you would worry that he takes this kid’s head off,” reckons Barry McGuigan. “Could get his jaw broke, his head smashed in, side of his head caved in, God forbid he could get a brain bleed,” says Carl Froch on his YouTube channel. “It could be the end of him. It could be his last day on Earth,” David Haye tells Sky News, with the sort of apocalyptic glare I try to give my children when they want to jump in a muddy puddle.

Yes, this week everyone appears to be deeply concerned for the wellbeing of 28-year-old YouTube celebrity Jake Paul. The announcement of his fight against Anthony Joshua next month has generated a flood of foreboding prognoses, and fair enough. Stepping into the ring with a two-time world heavyweight champion when a) you’re not even a heavyweight, b) your record consists almost entirely of novices and geriatrics and c) you still fight like a marmoset trapped in an empty crisp packet: on some level, we all know how this might go.

Continue reading...

• Ukrainian gives up undisputed heavyweight title status

• Fabio Wardley becomes sixth Briton to hold WBO crown

Fabio Wardley has been upgraded to WBO heavyweight champion after Oleksandr Usyk elected to relinquish the title – and his undisputed status – rather than defend it against the unbeaten Briton.

Wardley wrested the interim title from Joseph Parker via a dramatic 11th-round stoppage last month and was mandated to face the Ukrainian before the end of September.

Continue reading...

The so-called Judgment Day will generate millions of dollars and attract huge ratings, but leave boxing a little more broken

The unsurprising confirmation of “a colossal global showdown” between Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua arrived on Monday morning with a dull thud. That grand description of an eight-round scrap between a former YouTuber and a former world heavyweight champion was supplied by Paul’s company, Most Valuable Promotions, which also announced that the contest will be screened live on Netflix on 19 December and called Judgment Day.

Boxing operates in a netherworld that appears to have sunk far beyond any fear of judgment, while Paul has always had delusions of grandeur as a novice pro. But even boxing may have to consider its own culpability should Paul be badly hurt and end up in hospital after this fully sanctioned bout with regulation 10oz gloves is held in Miami.

Continue reading...

• Fight will be live on Netflix on 19 December

• YouTuber to face former heavyweight world champion

Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul will face each other in a heavyweight fight in Miami on 19 December, it has been confirmed.

Rumours of the fight between Paul, a YouTuber-turned-boxer, and Joshua, the British former heavyweight champion of the world, had been trailed earlier this month and Paul’s company, Most Valuable Promotions, confirmed the news on Monday. The fight will be shown live on Netflix.

Continue reading...

• Benn dominates Eubank Jr by unanimous decision

• Judges turn in scores of 119-107, 116-110 and 118-108

Buffer has just finished making the fighter announcements as 50 Cent remained in Eubank’s corner. A crackling atmosphere at Tottenham’s home ground. The waiting is over. The final instructions have been given by the referee, the seconds are out and we’ll pick it up with round-by-round coverage from here!

Eubank Jr is now trained by Brian “BoMac” McIntyre who is always in the corner of Terence Crawford, the best fighter in the world by some distance. And so there was a little zing of excitement among the Crawford connoisseurs when the mighty Bud appeared on the giant screen as he moved around Eubank’s dressing room. He shook hands warmly with a beaming Eubank Sr before stopping to share a few words with Junior. Those moments will matter far more to the Eubank camp than the fact that Benn received a bigger cheer than they did when he was seen on the same big screen having his hands wrapped. Personally, I think that’s 1-0 so far to Eubank Jr/Crawford over Benn/the crowd.

Continue reading...

Their dads lit a fire that consumed me but Eubank Jr v Conor Benn embodies all that has gone wrong with the Dark Trade

Thirty-five years ago this month, on 18 November 1990, my life changed course when I watched Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn fight each other in Birmingham with a ferocity which left me astonished and breathless. After that savage and surreal contest, I began working on a book about boxing, Dark Trade, which allowed me to become a full-time writer.

Benn and Eubank were so different that my already deep interest in boxing caught fire. I became consumed by the fight game for decades until, earlier this year, I finished writing The Last Bell, my fifth and final book about boxing. I still loved the most interesting fighters and their incredible life stories, but the controversies around the manufactured rivalry between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr left me sick at heart.

Continue reading...

Gripping contest in April damaged both men who wouldn’t be in the ring again if it weren’t for their fathers’ fights

Boxing has always been a deeply cynical business. The overwhelming objective for most promoters, and many fighters, is to rake in as much money as quickly as possible without any undue concern about looking crass or desperate.

Anyone who has spent just a little time in the company of boxers will understand that they deserve whatever cash they can make out of such a hard and dangerous activity. But promoters have ransacked the pockets of boxing fans through the decades while peddling anything and everything from Joe Louis’s “Bum of the Month” club to this week’s proposal that Anthony Joshua may make tens of millions of dollars if he steps into the ring to face Jake Paul, the former YouTuber, next month.

Continue reading...

• New Zealander lost against Fabio Wardley in London

• Failed test ‘came as a real surprise to me’

Joseph Parker has denied taking a prohibited substance after he failed a drugs test on the day of his 11th-round stoppage to British heavyweight Fabio Wardley, expressing confidence an investigation would clear his name.

Ipswich-born Wardley and New Zealander Parker produced a pulsating encounter in London on 25 October to determine who would become WBO mandatory challenger to undisputed world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.

Continue reading...

• Joshua and Paul finalizing December bout

• Fight expected in Miami on 19 or 26 December

• Netflix to announce matchup on Monday

Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul are finalizing a deal to meet in a heavyweight fight in Miami this December, sources told the Guardian, with Netflix preparing to announce the bout on Monday. A source with knowledge of the negotiations said the deal is done and that the fight will take place on either 19 or 26 December.

Paul had originally been scheduled to fight Gervonta Davis on 14 November at the Kaseya Center, but the event was cancelled after Davis was removed from the card amid domestic violence allegations. Davis’s former partner, Courtney Rossel, filed a civil lawsuit in Miami-Dade County accusing the lightweight champion of battery, aggravated battery, false imprisonment, kidnapping and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Miami Gardens police confirmed they are investigating the alleged incident, which Rossel says occurred at the strip club where she works. She was granted a restraining order shortly afterwards.

Continue reading...

• British fighter demands right to three-minute rounds

• WBC was set for purse bid for Cameron v Sandy Ryan

Chantelle Cameron relinquished her WBC super-lightweight title on Friday in a protest over women’s boxing rules, with the British fighter demanding the right to fight three-minute rounds like her male counterparts.

Cameron’s decision to vacate her championship belt stems from her opposition to the World Boxing Council’s mandate that women compete in two-minute rounds, which the 34-year-old views as unequal treatment.

Continue reading...