7:47 AM ET Donnie Nietes, one of the Philippines’ all-time great boxers, succeeded in his quest to win a world title in a fourth division on Monday. Nietes claimed a hard-fought split decision victory against Kazuto Ioka to win a vacant junior bantamweight belt in the action-packed main event of a world title tripleheader at

7:40 AM ET Associated Press TOKYO — Floyd Mayweather is promising entertainment when he fights Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in three rounds of exhibition boxing on New Year’s Eve, but not necessarily a knockout. “If it happens, it happens,” Mayweather said Saturday when asked whether he was going to knock out Nasukawa. But the American

7:34 AM ET Junior lightweight world titlist Masayuki Ito returned home for his first defense and laid a beating on mandatory challenger Evgeny Chuprakov en route to a seventh-round knockout victory on Sunday at the Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo. Ito systematically broke down Chuprakov in a dominating performance before Chuprakov’s corner threw in

4:55 PM ET Newly crowned flyweight world titleholder Charlie Edwards has had a laid-back celebration since winning the belt from Cristofer Rosales last week in upset fashion and is looking forward to the possibility of unifying titles. Edwards (14-1, 6 KOs), 25, of England won a unanimous decision — 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112 — over

8:47 PM ET Steve KimESPN Whether you like it or not — or if you had forgotten about it altogether — Floyd Mayweather will be engaging in what is being described as a “three-round exhibition” on the RIZIN 14 card, that features a full ledger of MMA bouts on New Year’s Eve at the Saitama

8:00 AM ET Even by modern sport’s extremes the British boxing year was exceptional, brutal, an endless mix of fairytales and horror stories with some quite unforgettable moments. The only place to start though is the end of the year when Tyson Fury walked the lean and mean streets of Los Angeles, mixing with the

6:51 PM ET Two-time junior lightweight world titlist Gervonta “Tank” Davis wanted a big name on his record, and Abner Mares wanted a chance to test himself and win a belt in a fourth weight class. And just like that, their fight, with no promoter or network conflicts, was made with relative ease. They’re training

1:28 PM 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 Anthony Joshua may have taken some flak in 2018 for the fights he did not have, but he remains ESPN’s British No. 1 pound-for-pound

2:51 PM ET NEW YORK — It’s 2 a.m. and Vasiliy Lomachenko is sitting at a corner table on the second floor of Jack Doyle’s, a popular Irish pub two blocks north of Madison Square Garden. His father and trainer, Anatoly, is sitting to his left, and his manager, Egis Klimas, is sitting in front

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on.Feb. 13, 2018. Heather Hardy is a fighter. She doesn’t need to tell you that. You can see it in the scars on her face as she sits down to wrap her hands before a training session. “There ain’t no b—- I ever met that’s tougher than me,”