Category: Boxing

The two-time Olympic gold medal-winning boxer’s life has been turned into rousing drama The Fire Inside, written by Oscar winner Barry Jenkins

Claressa Shields was two months removed from defending her Olympic gold medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games when an email from Hollywood landed in her inbox. Universal Studios wanted to make a movie about her life story. For Shields, who had spent much of her career fighting for recognition in a sport that marginalized women when they weren’t ignoring them entirely, the offer felt like more than just a career milestone. It was a rare mainstream acknowledgment of her achievements and a chance to amplify to a wider audience the struggles she had endured in and out of the ring.

“I never checked my emails back then,” Shields says with a laugh. “But I saw the subject line, and it said something about a movie. I thought, ‘A movie about my life? OK, let’s see what they’re talking about.’” That email kicked off a series of phone calls and meetings with the Oscar-winning screenwriter Barry Jenkins and other industry heavyweights. “We negotiated for a year. I was only 20, so I made sure I had a lawyer,” she recalls. “I wasn’t going to just sign anything. But once the contract was finalized, the ball started rolling.”

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The Briton stayed the distance against Oleksandr Usyk but after back-to-back defeats what is left for the 36-year-old to prove?

In the end everyone runs out of road. It was probably necessary for Tyson Fury to say he was robbed in the Kingdom Arena on Saturday night. Boxing demands this level of irrationality. Logical multimillionaires do not willingly schedule a brain-jarring, soul‑shredding half-hour beating from one of the most effective practitioners of controlled violence ever to walk the planet. A basic suspension of reason is required. Without it no one would ever step in the ring.

So Fury will maintain that all three judges were wrong to award a unanimous points decision in Oleksandr Usyk’s favour after 12 thrillingly intense rounds in Riyadh. Last time out Fury said he lost because of the war in Ukraine. This time he said it was because of Christmas. Nobody was robbed here. Fury, the challenger, needed to go out and actively take the heavyweight belts. In the event the champion always seemed to have his head above the water.

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Round by round, minute by minute, punch for punch. Here’s how our experts called the unified heavyweight title bout

Usyk and Fury practically sprint from their corners to meet each other in the center of the ring and Fury is already looking more aggressive than in round one of the first fight, pumping his jab with urgency. Usyk bursts into the pocket and lands a right hand upstairs. The 55lb weight difference looks even starker under the lights than at the weigh-in. Fury targeting Usyk’s body with straight shots. Both fighters opening up, eschewing the typical feeling-out period. More body shots from Fury. Usyk’s balletic footwork creating an elusive target for the challenger. Usyk barrels in and clips Fury with a left hand. A frantic pace!

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• Usyk defeats Fury by 12-round unanimous decision
• Usyk v Fury II: How the world title fight unfolded
• Britain’s Moses Itauma wins by TKO 1 in co-main event
• Oleksandr Usyk beats Tyson Fury again – in pictures

Our man at ringside checks in as we count down the minutes to the main event:

Moses Itauma is only 19 but the British teenage heavyweight recorded a sensational first-round TKO of a tough and normally durable Aussie, Demsey McKean. His ferocious punching power really lit up the Kingdom Arena and cleared the way for an earlier-than-expected start to the compelling main event. The music has been cranked up and, yep, everything feels much more intense. We’ve got a first real crackle in the previously chilly atmosphere.

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These complex, contradictory heavyweights are ready to recommence hostilities – let’s hope someone tells the locals

Fight week in Riyadh, at least to an outsider, is an often ghostly experience. Unless you’re up close and talking to the actual fighters, to Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, or seeing them step off a parked jumbo jet to make their outrageously grand arrivals in front of a small group of local dignitaries, chattering YouTube outlets and jaded reporters, boxing feels like a mysterious rumour from the other side of the world.

It’s hard to gauge how many of the 7 million people who live in this vast and teeming city are even aware that Usyk will defend his world heavyweight titles against Fury on Saturday night, in a rematch of their classic first fight in Riyadh just seven months ago. I have spent hours this week in the company of various Uber drivers, as we crisscross the city, and the chattier men tend to ask two questions: where are you from? Why are you here?

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• Ex-MMA champion says he will fight influencer in India
• Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani part of negotiations
• Jury found McGregor assaulted woman at Dublin hotel

Conor McGregor says he’s in negotiations to fight Logan Paul in a boxing exhibition in India.

McGregor said early Tuesday morning on social media he’s in “preliminary agreements” with the family of billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani to fight Paul.

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• Vázquez passes away aged 46 after cancer diagnosis
• Mexican great known for four fights with Rafael Márquez

Israel Vázquez, one of Mexico’s most celebrated boxers and a three-time super bantamweight world champion, has died aged 46.

The Mexico City native passed away after being diagnosed with cancer, the World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman confirmed on Tuesday.

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• Former world champ no match for YouTuber-turned-boxer
• Paul praises 58-year-old as ‘the greatest to ever do it’

After Mike Tyson’s first professional boxing match in nearly 20 years proved little more than a high-profile mismatch on Friday night, the former undisputed heavyweight champion expressed satisfaction with his performance and hinted that he may stay unretired.

Tyson dropped an eight-round unanimous decision at AT&T Stadium to the YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a fight streamed globally to Netflix’s 280m subscribers at no additional cost. The 58-year-old managed to win just two rounds on all three judges’ scorecards, losing by scores of 80-72 and 79-73 (twice) but finishing the proceedings on his feet and remaining unbowed.

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• Paul outpoints Tyson in manufactured mismatch
• Taylor outpoints Serrano on Paul v Tyson undercard

Moving right along. Next up is the first of two world title fights on the televised undercard: Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos in a scheduled 12-round fight for Barrios’ World Boxing Council welterweight championship.

It’s worth mentioning the 29-year-old from San Antonio never earned his title in the ring, instead being declared champion by the WBC after previous holder Terence Crawford (who’d unified all four belts at 147lbs) moved up a weight class to fight Israil Madrimov.

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What time does it start? Why Netflix? And what about that 31-year age difference? We (mostly) have the answers

Mike Tyson is returning to professional boxing for the first time in nearly two decades on Friday night in Texas. The 58-year-old former undisputed heavyweight champion is fighting YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a made-for-Netflix showdown expected to draw a global audience of around 300m viewers.

But is that all you really need to know? What about the rules, how much they’re getting paid and the *checks notes* 31-year age difference. Read on for all the answers ...

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World super lightweight champion reflects on her rematch with Amanda Serrano being the main support to the controversial bout

When Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano were locked in battle during the last round of their first fight at Madison Square Garden, on a fevered night in April 2022, I could not help myself. Alongside an entire row of ringside reporters, I stood up to watch the final minute of a riveting contest. Suddenly oblivious to the march of our urgent deadlines and the etiquette of remaining above such raw human emotion, we were swept away by the courage and determination of both women in one of the greatest fights ever staged at the Garden.

“It was only afterwards, when you’re looking back and hearing people’s reactions that you think: ‘Gosh, that was a huge moment for women in boxing’,” Taylor says now. “You’re hearing stories of young girls being inspired by that night and how people are calling it historic. It’s then that you just say: ‘Wow, that was an amazing night.’

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Like most boxing fans I hate the idea of this deluded nonsense but there certainly seems to be a market for it

Mark Borkowski is the public relations maestro who has worked with everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Diego Maradona to Jim Rose, an American exhibitionist who used to hang weights from his penis. Borkowski also helped Ian Botham recreate Hannibal’s walk across the Alps with elephants, and, for his sins, was the mastermind behind Cliff Richard’s Saviour’s Day reaching Christmas No 1, despite minimal radio play. So who better to talk about the biggest sporting stunt of the year, Mike Tyson’s fight against Jake Paul, which will be streamed into 300m homes via Netflix this weekend?

Instinctively, as I told Borkowksi, I hate the idea. Most boxing fans do. It sells a myth that wasn’t even close to being a reality in 2004, let alone 2024: namely that Tyson is one of the most ferocious warriors alive, not a 58-year-old who lost 26lb in May after an ulcer flare-up that left him throwing up blood and defecating tar. It risks Tyson’s boxing reputation and his health. And, Netflix’s lavish promotion aside, it feels more like a sham or a circus than a genuine sporting event.

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YouTuber Jake Paul versus the 58-year-old boxing legend – a grizzly pantomime? Or a grim harbinger of the future?

The trailer for Netflix’s latest multimillion-dollar venture starts with a dramatic drumbeat, the slap of glove on pad, and a familiar Brooklyn drawl. “He’s a manufactured killer,” says Mike Tyson, with almost cartoon relish. “I am a natural-born killer.”

The camera then cuts to the man he will face in the early hours of Saturday UK time, the influencer Jake Paul. “We’re going to war,” predicts Paul, who made his fortune filming pranks such as I Sunk My Friend’s Car And Surprised Him With A New One before an even more lucrative pivot into boxing. “And he’s getting knocked out.”

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