May 24, 2019 Steve KimESPN This much is clear about WBO junior lightweight champion Masayuki Ito and his trainer, Rudy Hernandez: They work extremely well together. There is a personal chemistry that exists between them, even with a language barrier. It’s been a highly successful union, with Ito developing from a boxing novice (who had
Boxing
9:16 PM ET Daniel Franco, a once aspiring featherweight boxer who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a knockout loss that ended his career and nearly his life in 2017, filed a lawsuit this week against former promoter Roc Nation Sports and its founder, music mogul Jay Z, claiming negligence. Franco filed suit Tuesday in
11:39 PM ET While most of the boxing world’s attention this week has been on the two-city, cross-country media tour as Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman promote their welterweight world title fight, super middleweight titlist Caleb Plant and challenger Mike Lee were also along for the stops in New York and Los Angeles to talk
10:30 AM ET Mark KriegelESPN COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Some fighters you love for what they can do in the ring — a sublime skill, perhaps, or an aptitude for devastation. Then there are others, even more rare, you come to love for what they represent. On Saturday night, Jamel Herring should be recognized as
10:51 AM ET When Devin Haney was a teenager and one of the top amateur boxers in the United States, he dreamed of earning a berth in the 2016 Olympics, and he was on the right path. “I was winning all the tournaments that I needed to to go to the Olympics,” Haney said. And
12:44 PM ET Associated Press LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Dealing a blow to Olympic boxing officials after months of investigations, the IOC has set up a vote next month on removing the sport’s governing body AIBA from organizing bouts at the 2020 Tokyo Games. The International Olympic Committee said its executive board on Wednesday proposed suspending
11:33 AM ET Steve KimESPN Yes, Japan’s Naoya Inoue is my No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. No, that is not a typo. With all due respect to Vasiliy Lomachenko and Terence Crawford — who are generally listed at the top of most P4P rankings — and Canelo Alvarez and Oleksandr Usykky — who
1:00 PM ET Who is the world’s best fighter, regardless of weight class? Check out ESPN’s latest top 10. Don’t forget to check out Dan Rafael’s divisional rankings, which are updated weekly. For a list of the current champions in all weight classes, click here. Note: Results are through May 22. THE PANEL: Dan Rafael,
4:16 PM ET The fight between welterweight world titlist Keith Thurman and the legend Manny Pacquiao, who holds a secondary belt, matches fighters with a 10-year gap in their ages and untold miles on their boxing odometers. Thurman’s issues haven’t been hard, grueling fights but injuries that have kept the 30-year old relatively inactive in
10:32 AM ET Super middleweight world titlist Callum Smith’s first defense will come against former middleweight titlist Hassan N’Dam, one of his former sparring partners, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn announced on Tuesday. The fight, in the works in recent weeks, will serve as the co-feature for unified heavyweight world titlist Anthony Joshua’s United States’