Tim Tszyu faces career crossroads after defeat to Sebastian Fundora in world title rematch

  • American wins by TKO after Australian agrees to seventh-round stoppage

  • Third loss in past four bouts leaves 30-year-old’s boxing future up in air

Tim Tszyu has suffered another devastating setback, losing once again to American Sebastian Fundora in the pair’s much-hyped world title rematch in Las Vegas.

Tszyu had been hunting redemption after losing a split-decision bloodbath to Fundora 16 months ago.

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Oleksandr Usyk v Daniel Dubois: undisputed heavyweight championship – as it happened

And now here’s Usyk. The unbeaten heavyweight champion walks slowly to the ring to a haunting version of Ave Maria by Tommee Profitt and Stanaj. He’s wearing a silver hooded robe and looks all business. Nothing new there. He makes the final approach to Браття by Василь Жадан, one of his more familiar ringwalk songs.

The lights have gone down and Daniel Dubois is making his ring entrance. A half-dozen stage pyrotechnicians are doing their thing on stage to a Chase & Status banger. And now here’s Dubois, making the long way to the ring wearing a sleeveless black shirt with black shorts. He looks calm and composed, making his final approach as Dennis Brown’s Want To Be No General blasts from the stadium sound system.

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Meet the unlikely double act who have found key to unlock real Daniel Dubois

One is a former child soldier, the other lost 30% of his brain to a boxing injury, and together they’ve built the Briton into fighter who can challenge Usyk

‘We understand human psychology because of what we went through rather than going to university to study it,” Don Charles says as he sits alongside his assistant Kieran Farrell on an old church pew in his gym in Hertfordshire. The contrasting trainers explain how their extraordinary back stories have helped them unlock the reclusive and complex character of Daniel Dubois as he aims to beat Oleksandr Usyk and become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night.

“It’s true because I’ve found a second life after I had a bleed on the brain,” Farrell says as the 35-year-old from Manchester remembers the terrible injury he suffered in 2012 when he fought Anthony Crolla. “I lost 30% of my brain but it’s incredible to now be working with Don who knew me when I was boxer.”

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‘Two fights left’: Usyk closes in on history and retirement with Dubois test

Ukrainian seeks to unify the heavyweight division again at Wembley on Saturday before putting family time first

Boxing, as Oleksandr Usyk knows, gets everyone in the end. It is a harsh and pitiless business and earlier this week, at the end of a long afternoon answering the same old questions in front of a line of television cameras, Usyk sat down with a small group of familiar faces who have written about him for years. During his last assignment for the day he opened up a little more as he spoke about the sacrifices boxing demands.

He told us how much he wanted to see his wife, Yekaterina, as she had just flown into London and they would be reunited that evening. Three months had passed, in a gruelling training camp, since they had been together and Usyk spoke about missing her and their four children.

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Daniel Lapin, Ukraine’s next big boxing hope, on Usyk bonds after Russia ‘broke’ early career

Light-heavyweight is a trusted member of Oleksandr Usyk’s camp and hopes to star on Saturday’s Wembley undercard

Daniel Lapin pulls up a video on his phone and, having chatted away for 40 minutes, lets the images do the talking. Or, more accurately, the sounds. It is a scene he captured in the early hours of a Kyiv morning during the spring and what stands out above everything is the awful, incessant, gathering buzz of the Russian-controlled drones that plague Ukraine’s capital almost every night. Sleep is rendered impossible for residents during those attacks, partly due to the sheer noise and in huge degree to the fear that you, or your loved ones, will be struck next. “After a night like that you don’t want to train,” he says. “It can go on five nights in a row. You don’t want anything, you’re just walking around like a zombie.”

On Saturday, though, Lapin will be fully alert to the task at hand. The light-heavyweight is Ukraine’s next boxing hope, his promise and pedigree immense, and his fight against Lewis Edmondson will be a highlight of the undercard before Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois contest their undisputed world heavyweight title bout at Wembley. Lapin has seen Russia’s aggression stall his career on two distinct occasions but is closer than ever to carving out a legend of his own.

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Daniel Dubois shrugs off Canelo Álvarez’s $500,000 bet against him

  • Mexican is convinced Oleksandr Usyk will beat Dubois

  • ‘It don’t mean nothing. He’s going to lose his money’

Daniel Dubois has warned Canelo Álvarez that he will lose $500,000 on Saturday night after the Mexican superstar placed a sizeable bet against him. Álvarez, the richest and most celebrated fighter in contemporary boxing, is convinced that Oleksandr Usyk will beat Dubois at Wembley Stadium for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.

“It don’t mean nothing me,” Dubois said at Thursday’s press conference when he was asked about Álvarez’s expensive prediction. “It don’t mean shit to me. He’s going to lose his money. From now on I’m just focused.”

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Cherished champion and statesman: Usyk focuses on Ukraine before titles

Boxing great made two symbolic political gestures in London with his bout against Daniel Dubois only days away

On Monday afternoon, in central London, Oleksandr Usyk looked resplendent on an open-topped black bus as he prepared to send loaded messages to Daniel Dubois, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. High in the air he held three fingers on his right hand to signify his intention to become a three-time undisputed world champion. It was a typical sporting gesture and underlined his determination to defeat Dubois at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night and follow his earlier achievements in winning all the belts as a cruiserweight and then, last year, becoming the first boxer to unify the world heavyweight division this century.

Usyk remains the WBA, WBC and WBO champion but boxing politics forced him to vacate his IBF title soon after he beat Tyson Fury in their magnificent first world title unification fight 14 months ago in Riyadh. He looks ready now for the dangerous challenge of Dubois, the new IBF champion, but Usyk’s arrival in London was a timely reminder of the far more significant role he plays in Ukraine.

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Daniel Dubois: ‘That first fight against Usyk is behind me – I’m a man of the future’

The IBF champion on flying under the radar, Oleksandr Usyk’s weaknesses and how past defeats have steeled him

“It’s definitely the biggest fight of my life,” Daniel Dubois says of his world heavyweight title unification bout against Oleksandr Usyk at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night before, following a slightly deflated pause, he highlights an unusually downbeat buildup. “It’s strange but it feels like it’s been going under the cover, like it hasn’t been really hyped‑up as I would have thought a unification fight will be. But maybe that will pick up on the night.

Sitting in the July sunshine outside his gym in Borehamwood, with the Wembley arch clearly visible through the haze of heat, Dubois looks a little hurt when I ask if he can explain why there has been such limited fanfare around an interesting rematch between two contrasting heavyweights who own all the world titles between them. “I’m not sure,” Dubois says in his role as the IBF champion. He then laughs ruefully.

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Boxer Gervonta Davis arrested on domestic violence charge in Florida

  • Boxing star arrested Friday on battery charge

  • Davis allegedly hit ex-girlfriend on Father’s Day

  • Held without bond in Miami-Dade County jail

Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis was arrested Friday in Florida on a domestic violence charge, nearly a month after allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend outside her home on Father’s Day.

Davis, 30, was taken into custody in Miami Beach and booked at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade County. He is being held without bond, according to jail records.

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Boxer Julio César Chávez Jr arrested by Ice over alleged cartel ties

  • Boxer Chávez Jr arrested by Ice in Los Angeles

  • DHS flagged him as threat but let him reenter US

  • Linked to Sinaloa cartel and faces deportation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has arrested Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr in California and begun proceedings to deport him, citing cartel affiliations, multiple criminal convictions and an active arrest warrant in Mexico for weapons trafficking and organized crime.

Chávez Jr, 38, the son of the legendary world champion Julio César Chávez Sr, was taken into custody by Ice agents on Tuesday in Studio City, a Los Angeles neighborhood known for celebrity residences. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), he had been living in the US unlawfully and posed a significant threat to public safety.

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Jake Paul eligible for title shot after entering WBA’s cruiserweight rankings

  • YouTuber debuts at No 14 in WBA cruiserweight ranks

  • Paul’s ranking reflects star power, not fight record

  • Zurdo Ramírez or Badou Jack could be next opponent

Jake Paul has entered the World Boxing Association’s cruiserweight rankings, making the YouTuber-turned-boxer eligible to fight for a world title.

The WBA slotted Paul (12-1, 7 KOs) at No. 14 in the latest edition of its rankings late Monday night, two days after Paul beat 39-year-old Julio César Chávez Jr by unanimous decision in Anaheim, California.

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Canelo Álvarez to face Terence Crawford in Netflix-streamed Las Vegas megafight

  • Canelo v Crawford set for 13 September in Las Vegas

  • Fight to stream free for Netflix users, not pay-per-view

  • No venue confirmed yet; Allegiant Stadium in talks

Boxing’s most eagerly anticipated fight in years, the long-rumored showdown between Canelo Álvarez and Terence Crawford, will take place on 13 September in Las Vegas and stream globally on Netflix, organizers confirmed on Tuesday.

The summit meeting will match two of the most accomplished pound-for-pound fighters of the past decade in a cross-divisional clash with generational implications. Álvarez, the undisputed super middleweight champion who’s held titles between 154lb and 175lb, will defend his crown against Crawford, the unbeaten four-weight titleholder from 135lb through 154lb. Crawford will move up two weight classes to challenge the Mexican superstar in what has already been billed as the “fight of the century”.

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