5:13 PM ET WBC women’s junior lightweight champion Alycia Baumgardner will be making her first title defense April 16 against Edith Soledad Matthysse in Manchester, England. Baumgardner and her promoter, Matchroom Boxing, announced the fight Saturday as part of the Conor Benn-Chris van Heerden card. The 27-year-old Baumgardner (11-1, 7 KO), from Michigan, won her
Boxing
10:28 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN After 16 months away from the ring and at 40 years old, there were plenty of questions surrounding Gennadiy Golovkin in the lead-up to his middleweight title unification fight with Ryota Murata in Saitama, Japan, on Saturday. Since suffering a majority-decision loss to Canelo Alvarez in September 2018, Golovkin (42-1-1,
8:53 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Gennadiy Golovkin is inching closer to a long-awaited trilogy fight with Canelo Alvarez. One day after he turned 40, Golovkin captured a second middleweight title with a ninth-round stoppage of Ryota Murata on Saturday in Saitama, Japan, in an early candidate for Fight of the Year. Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs)
6:01 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua will meet July 23 in a rematch for the unified heavyweight championship, likely in Saudi Arabia, sources told ESPN. When they met in September in London, Joshua entered with three heavyweight titles but Usyk wrested the championship in dominant fashion. The former undisputed cruiserweight champion
8:00 AM ET Timothy Bradley Jr. Saturday brings four major boxing cards with some long-awaited returns, close matchups and opportunities for fighters to test their level before engaging in bigger and better things. In what looks on paper to be a 50-50 fight, junior middleweight contenders Erickson Lubin and Sebastian Fundora will meet in Atlanta
2:20 PM ET IBF and WBO junior lightweight champion Mikaela Mayer has agreed to a multi-year extension with Top Rank that will earn her seven-figures over the life of the deal. The 31-year-old Mayer (16-0, 5 KO) will have her 17th pro fight Saturday night as the headliner against Jennifer Han in Costa Mesa, California
7:48 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Gennadiy Golovkin stormed through the red, white and blue ropes encompassing the ring in disgust and made a beeline for his dressing room. He wasn’t interested in sticking around at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the customary postfight interview. What was left to be said? Golovkin firmly believed he
7:48 AM ET A couple of texts exchanged and roughly five minutes is all it takes for Ryan Garcia to embark down the southern California coastline for a trip with no exact destination. It’s the favorite part of Garcia’s first official training camp under new trainer Joe Goossen, who lives close enough to Garcia in
7:47 AM ET When Jennifer Han got the call in 2021, she knew this was not going to be easy. Not even close. The opponent — undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor — was very talented. There was also her own situation. Han had given birth to her second child, Nolan, months before. She said she
7:33 AM ET Former featherweight world champion Lee Selby has retired at the age of 35 in the wake of his defeat to Gustavo Lemos in Buenos Aires last month. Selby, who held the IBF featherweight title for three years after beating Evgeny Gradovich in 2015, suffered the first stoppage defeat of his career in