11:45 AM ET SALT LAKE CITY — The best pound-for-pound fighter in the world will be back in the Octagon this weekend. Kamaru Usman and challenger Leon Edwards successfully made weight Friday morning — both at exactly 170 pounds — for their welterweight title fight in the main event of UFC 278 on Saturday at
10:11 AM ET ESPN Fantasy Our ESPN Fantasy staff got together for another mock draft, this time using a 12-team, half PPR format. This draft featured the following participants (in order of first-round selection): Matt Bowen, Liz Loza, Keith Lipscomb, Marcel Louis-Jacques, Tyler Fulghum, Eric Moody, Tristan H. Cockcroft, Joe Kaiser, Kyle Soppe, Mike Triplett,
8:58 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Challenger Anthony Joshua on Friday weighed in at 244.5 pounds — the heaviest he’s been for a fight since June 2019 — ahead of his unified heavyweight championship rematch Saturday against Oleksandr Usyk in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) tipped the scales at 221.5 pounds, a quarter-pound heavier
9:00 AM ET Kyle Bonagura Close ESPN Staff Writer Covers the Pac-12. Joined ESPN in 2014. Attended Washington State University. Paolo Uggetti The demise of the Pac-12 has been greatly exaggerated. Well … at least for now. Even though the conference can barely be discussed without delving into the shocking departures of USC and UCLA
9:17 AM ET Nebraska has named Casey Thompson, a transfer from Texas, as its starting quarterback for next week’s season opener against Northwestern in Dublin, Ireland. Coach Scott Frost, speaking Thursday night on his radio show, said Thompson “will take the first rep” against Northwestern. Thompson, who transferred to Nebraska in January, started 10 games
8:04 AM ET Timothy Bradley Jr. After 12 rounds that saw Oleksandr Usyk skillfully outbox Anthony Joshua in September 2021, the two will meet once again for three of the four major heavyweight titles on Saturday in Saudi Arabia. The rematch (DAZN, main event expected at 5:30 p.m. ET), has the potential to be a
8:00 AM ET WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. — UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman hasn’t fought in nearly 10 months. Usually, those who follow this sport refer to that amount of time between fights as a “layoff” — but nothing about how Usman chose to spend those 10 months sounds like much of a break. “Everyone says,
7:00 AM ET Like every good summer binge watch, the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship hasn’t been short on drama. Its biggest plot twist so far? The ouster of defending gold medal champion Team USA, which fell 4-2 to Czechia in Wednesday’s quarterfinal matchup. The United States had been unbeaten through preliminary tournament action, and
7:51 AM ET Mark KriegelESPN Athletes are often asked — indeed, they ask themselves — “How bad do you want it?” It’s as if desire could be quantified. Truth is, that’s an empty question that elicits mostly vacant responses. The athlete usually understands his or her role in this exchange: To make it pass as
7:00 AM ET The college football extended universe is something a fiction writer could only dream of creating. Star Wars never had a side plot as worthwhile as the BYU-Utah Holy War. The Buffyverse was never capable of something as unexpectedly rich as the Grand Valley State-Ferris State rivalry. (And I say that as someone