Boxing

1:09 PM ET The junior welterweight unification title bout between Jose Ramirez and Josh Taylor will take place May 22 at a venue to be determined in Las Vegas. Ramirez, the WBC and WBO champion, and Taylor, the IBF and WBA champion, had initially been planning to fight May 8, but the fight was moved

5:25 AM ET IN A YEAR when Claressa Shields bought a house, created an expansive home gym and successfully gained a larger social media following, the one thing she couldn’t do was what she wanted to do the most: fight. It had been a year of yo-yo fight planning — dates given and pulled back,

Feb 1, 2021 It wasn’t close on Saturday night, and as expected, Canelo Alvarez took care of WBC mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim to retain his titles. Immediately after the fight, Alvarez’s next fight was announced — a unification bout against Billy Joe Saunders. Will Alvarez achieve his goal of unifying the super middleweight division in

6:53 PM ET WBC and WBA super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez defends his belts against mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim in the main event of Saturday’s DAZN card at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami (DAZN, 7 p.m. ET). Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) unified the titles by defeating Callum Smith by unanimous decision in December. That was

12:32 AM ET Ben Baby Close ESPN Staff Writer ESPN Staff Writer Previously a college football writer for The Dallas Morning News University of North Texas graduate Michael Rothstein Close ESPN Staff Writer Previously covered University of Michigan for ESPN.com and AnnArbor.com Also covered Notre Dame for Fort Wayne Journal Gazette Another Canelo Alvarez fight,

1:34 PM ET Former junior welterweight champion Regis Prograis will be featured on a unique boxing card. Prograis will face Ivan Redkach on the undercard of the Jake Paul-Ben Askren event on April 17 that will be produced by Triller, a source confirmed to ESPN on Saturday. The recent development comes on the heels of

11:18 PM ET From the opening bell Saturday night, Canelo Alvarez appeared destined for a knockout victory against mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim. Alvarez didn’t have to wait long for that. Yildirim’s corner threw in the towel at the end of the third round, as Alvarez picked up a technical knockout victory and retained his WBC

12:41 PM ET Undefeated light heavyweight Gilberto Ramirez has signed a promotional deal with Golden Boy for multiple fights. The 29-year-old Ramirez (41-0, 27 KOs) had won the WBO super middleweight belt, but after five title defenses he decided to jump to light heavyweight, where he has won two fights. “They understood the goals and

7:37 AM ET The vast majority of the boxing world sees the outcome of Saturday’s super middleweight title defense by Canelo Alvarez in Miami a foregone conclusion. WBC mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim has lost both of his big step-up fights in his career and has been out of the ring for two years. Alvarez has

8:08 AM ET Nick Parkinson Close •Reports on boxing for ESPN.co.uk, as well as several national newspapers•Has been reporting on British boxing for over 15 years•Appears on BoxNation’s Boxing Matters show Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are close to agreeing a deal for their world heavyweight title unification fight, Fury’s co-promoter Frank Warren has told

7:36 AM ET On Saturday, Feb. 20, lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez went to Top Rank Promotions president Todd duBoef with a simple question: “Are we good?” It was an inquiry made during a difficult negotiation process surrounding Lopez’s mandatory IBF title defense against George Kambosos Jr. When Lopez asked the question, it appeared all parties

8:06 PM ET WBC flyweight world titleholder Julio Cesar Martinez has withdrawn from his fight against mandatory challenger McWilliams Arroyo because of a hand injury, Matchroom Boxing announced Thursday. The fight was scheduled to take place on Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez-Avni Yildirim card at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Martinez said in an Instagram post Thursday

12:55 PM ET Three-division world titlist and current middleweight undisputed champion Claressa Shields has called for women’s world title bouts to be the same length as men’s fights, arguing that existing regulations strengthen the argument that women should be paid less. Women’s world title fights are conducted over 10 rounds of two minutes while men

1:18 PM ET Triller just threw its name in the ring to promote the next fight of one of boxing’s rising stars. The upstart tech company won the rights to promote Teofimo Lopez’s lightweight title defense against George Kambosos with a bid of more than $6 million, a source told ESPN, confirming multiple reports. Triller,

12:02 PM ET WBC heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury says he will absolutely fight twice in 2021, regardless of whether a megafight against Anthony Joshua comes together. Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) has not stepped into the ring for over a year now, as the anniversary of his sensational knockout of Deontay Wilder passed on Monday.

7:27 PM ET Jamel Herring’s constantly moving WBO junior lightweight title defense against Carl Frampton has a new date. The Herring-Frampton fight, which was supposed to happen Saturday in Great Britain, will now take place April 3 in Dubai, it was announced Wednesday. The fight was postponed last week because of a hand injury to

9:27 AM ET Steve Kim Anna Katherine Clemmons Close Anna Katherine Clemmons is a contributing writer for ESPN The Magazine. Editor’s note: This story was originally published in Oct. 28, 2019. Canelo Alvarez is boxing’s biggest superstar. At 29, Alvarez — who will jump two weight classes to try to win a world title when

11:28 AM ET The small, bold font at the bottom of a full-page spread in the Feb. 2 edition of Fanatik, a daily sports newspaper in Turkey, posed a simple question: “So who is Canelo Alvarez?” The query was accompanied by a short paragraph and an unremarkable, expressionless headshot of the Mexican fighter. It accurately