Boxing

7:50 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Errol Spence Jr. was less than two weeks away from a career-defining fight with Manny Pacquiao when he realized something was wrong. Spence had already returned from a devastating car crash, and while sparring to prepare for the Pacquiao fight, he felt something happened to his eye. Days later, he

9:09 PM ET An unidentified plaintiff has filed a civil lawsuit against professional boxer Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz, accusing the former IBF super featherweight champion of attempting to coerce a minor to engage in sexual activity. The lawsuit, which was filed by ‘Jane Doe’ in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges

3:26 PM ET ESPN News Services DUBLIN — Some of the biggest figures in boxing have been urged to cut ties with a promoter who fronts an Irish organized crime gang targeted with sanctions by the American government on Tuesday. The U.S. ambassador to Ireland, Claire Cronin, said at a news conference in Dublin that

7:52 AM ET They can envision April 30 now. Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano walking toward the ring in the main arena of New York’s Madison Square Garden, one of the most iconic sporting venues in the world. Thousands of fans cheering. Irish and Puerto Rican flags flying. A buzz in the air, a fight

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)

12:51 AM ET Mikaela Mayer continued to show why she is one of the best female fighters in the world. In her first fight in her home state of California as a champion, Mayer scored a dominant unanimous decision win over Jennifer Han to retain her IBF and WBO junior lightweight titles at The Hangar

1:21 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Ryan Garcia has gone the 12-round distance for the first time in his career, in scoring a unanimous-decision victory over Emmanuel Tagoe on Saturday in San Antonio. The 23-year-old rising star remained undefeated via scores of 119-108, 119-108 and 118-109. Garcia (22-0, 18 KOs) scored a flash knockdown of Tagoe

2:13 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN They call him “The Towering Inferno,” a 6-foot-6, 154-pound boxer who can throw punches from seemingly all angles. Sebastian Fundora had dazzled with his height for the junior middleweight division to earn the No. 5 spot in ESPN’s ranking, but he had never been truly tested before the fight Saturday

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

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,

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

7:33 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

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

6:36 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 Savannah Marshall made quick work of Femke Hermans on Saturday, stopping her with a crunching left hook in the third round to set up