Category: Boxing

The heavyweight from Dagestan now lives in Canada and describes Saturday’s opponent as the ‘professor’ of boxing

“This guy is the professor,” Arslanbek Makhmudov says of Tyson Fury as he looks forward politely to their fight on Saturday night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. There is none of the usual bluster and malice of heavyweight boxing as the huge Russian from Dagestan shows considerable respect for the former world champion who is making yet another comeback to the ring.

“Tyson Fury is the professor of mind and boxing,” Makhmudov continues in his functional but effective English. “A lot of boxing is mental and he is a master. But boxing is also spiritual. I am going to be strong, spiritual and smart. You can say this is a war between mental and spiritual and we’ll see who is more successful. Inshallah it is spiritual.”

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• London-born fighter wins easily on points

• Harper was knocked down in sixth round

Caroline Dubois added the WBO world lightweight title to her WBC crown with a unanimous points victory over her fellow Briton Terri Harper. The London-born younger sister of heavyweight Daniel Dubois scored a 98-91, 97-92, 98-91 win to see off Harper at London Olympia on Sunday night.

Dubois struggled to get to her opponent initially, but floored her in the sixth round and never looked back as she moved a step closer to unifying the division.

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• Wilder wins heavyweight contest on split decision

• British boxer earns hero’s reception in final fight

Deontay Wilder consigned the British heavyweight Derek Chisora to defeat in his final bout but only after an exhilarating fight-of-the-year contender at a raucous O₂ Arena. In the 50th bout of Chisora’s eventful professional career, Del Boy showed remarkable powers of recovery to come back from a punishing eighth round and take the former WBC champion the distance in south-east London.

After the American showed early on the power that once made him one of the most formidable punchers in heavyweight history, Chisora’s farewell threatened to turned into a nightmare during a one-sided start.

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The IBF and WBC welterweight champion on returning to the ring, boxing politics and her imminent wedding

A year ago, on a historic night for boxing when an all-women card of fights was held at the Royal Albert Hall last March, Lauren Price produced an imperious headline performance which should have led to a series of even more prestigious bouts. Her dominant display in outclassing the venerable Natasha Jonas appeared to be the ideal launching for a new stage of Price’s career as the IBF and WBC world welterweight champion.

But when she finally steps back into the ring on Saturday night in Cardiff to defend her titles against Stephanie Piñeiro Aquino, the little-known Puerto Rican challenger, almost 13 months will have passed since that high point. Only frustration and inertia have followed.

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The great old warhorse of British boxing, who faces his 50th and final bout on Saturday, reflects on retirement, Deontay Wilder and his friendship with the Reform leader

“Nigel’s here,” Derek Chisora says as he gives me a nudge when we walk into a restaurant called Boisdale in Belgravia. The great old warhorse of British boxing and I have been ambling around this stretch of London in search of a place where we can sit down and talk. He settles on Boisdale, which tags itself as “a British restaurant” and “a carnivore’s delight”.

Even though we are not dropping in for lunch Chisora has enough of a swagger to blag us a private room to chat. We look more ragged than the diners, including Nigel Farage, and I’m not sure that the seemingly bewildered staff have a clear idea who Chisora is but we sweep through the restaurant, climb the stairs and find ourselves in a discreet room. After Chisora orders a bottle of water for us to share he asks the waiter to let Farage know that he is here.

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• British boxer continues ascent and wants Usyk next

• American shocked by his first knockout, in fifth round

Moses Itauma made another emphatic statement as the British heavyweight prospect became the first fighter to stop Jermaine Franklin.

Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte were both taken the distance in points wins in Franklin’s two previous visits to the UK but the durable American was brutally taken out midway through the fifth round by Itauma in Manchester.

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Britain’s heavyweight prospect puts his unbeaten record on the line against Jermaine Franklin on Saturday

Moses Itauma might represent the glittering future of heavyweight boxing but right now he is locked in the present. In the back seat of a car, while being driven from one swanky hotel to another in Manchester, the 21-year-old turns to me and says: “Let’s get going.”

I know how much Itauma dislikes interviews and so the only sensible option is to resist this blunt invitation to rush through our 45 minutes together. On Saturday night, in Manchester, Itauma fights Jermaine Franklin, the tough American who should provide his first notable test after he has won all 13 professional fights so far, with 11 ending in brutal stoppages. So he nods, just a little grudgingly, when I suggest we wait until we are sitting face to face.

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• 19-year-old taken to hospital after loss in California

• Knockout happened just 78 seconds into fight

The promoter and family of junior flyweight boxer Isis Sio say she is awake and breathing on her own after initially being placed in a medically induced coma following a knockout loss last weekend.

Sio is still in intensive care, but the 19-year-old is no longer on a ventilator, ProBox TV announced in a news release on Monday.

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• Usyk condemns Russia’s return to global sport

• Ukrainian champion calls Olympic shift “absurd”

• Heavyweight star still targeting Fury trilogy

The world of sport appears to be softening the hardline stance it took when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Russian athletes are back competing under their own flag at the Paralympics. Fifa president Gianni Infantino said the international ban on Russian soccer teams “has not achieved anything”. And his counterpart at the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry, insists all athletes should be allowed to “compete freely.”

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• Unbeaten rivals collide at Tokyo Dome on 2 May

• Inoue defends undisputed super-bantamweight crown

• Nakatani says he must be ‘at my best’ to win

Japan’s Naoya Inoue said Friday that he will need to be at his destructive best when he faces unbeaten countryman Junto Nakatani in their highly anticipated showdown at Tokyo Dome in May.

The two fighters met in Tokyo to formally confirm their 2 May clash, with Inoue set to defend his undisputed super bantamweight world championship against Nakatani, who is moving up in weight in pursuit of a fourth divisional title.

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• Champion will face Rico Verhoeven for WBC belt in May

• ‘I respect people who reach the very top in their sport’

Oleksandr Usyk, who has not fought since a fifth-round knockout of Daniel Dubois at Wembley in July, will defend his WBC heavyweight title against a kickboxer at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

The bout with Rico Verhoeven on 23 May, dubbed “Glory in Giza”, will be the first title fight held in Egypt, according to The Ring magazine, and will be streamed live on Dazn.

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• 40-something fighters will meet in Las Vegas

• Mayweather won previous encounter in 2015

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will face each other on 19 September in Las Vegas in a rematch of one of the biggest fights in boxing history.

Their first fight, in 2015, was generally seen as a tame affair with both fighters past their peaks. September’s bout, which will be streamed live on Netflix, is likely to be of a lower quality. Mayweather and Pacquiao will be 49 and 47 respectively when they fight. Mayweather’s last professional fight, which preserved his unbeaten record, came in 2017, although that was a glorified exhibition against UFC star Conor McGregor. Pacquiao fought for the WBC welterweight championship last year, but is far from the force he was in his prime.

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