5:39 PM ET LAS VEGAS – WBC junior lightweight champion Oscar Valdez is set to return to the ring in September for a voluntary title defense against veteran Andrew Cancio in Arizona, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN Thursday. Valdez (29-0, 23 KOs) is coming off a significant upset victory over Miguel Berchelt in
admin
7:15 AM ET The private jet taxied into its hangar in Phoenix on Sunday, shortly after 5 p.m. local time. It carried passengers who had boarded a couple of hours earlier in Stockton, California. But they’ve been on a long, strange trip for years. Nate Diaz arrived for UFC 263 with friends who remember when
8:00 AM ET KEVIN GAUSMAN saw his own reflection in the numbers; their stark, unsentimental truth contained a judgment, and a promise. Everything he knew about himself as a pitcher could be found inside them: strengths, flaws, anxieties. It was liberating, and maybe a little unsettling, for Gausman to realize the San Francisco Giants, making
While Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker might be college baseball’s odd couple, the star pitchers have been winners at Vanderbilt from the get-go. In Leiter’s SEC debut earlier this year, he threw a no-hitter. During Rocker’s freshman season in 2019, he earned College World Series Most Outstanding Player honors while leading the Commodores to the
McLaren will race in the climate-aware off-road series Extreme E next year. The illustrious Formula 1 team, who have eight constructors’ titles, join seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, whose own X44 team is currently competing in the inaugural season. “Our attention was immediately drawn by the innovative format of this motorsport platform,” said McLaren chief
2:16 PM ET Euro 2020 kicks off this Friday with Italy vs. Turkey in Rome — stream LIVE, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN+ (U.S. only) — but who are the players on every team that you need to know before the real fun begins over the weekend? ESPN senior writer Gab Marcotti runs through all 24
2:50 AM ET It is easy to forget — and perhaps healthier — that two teams blew 3-games-to-1 series leads against the Denver Nuggets in last season’s Western Conference playoffs. But fate has matched those teams — Utah Jazz and LA Clippers — against each other in the second round of this year’s playoffs, a
2:43 AM BST ESPN staff The United States has thrown its hat into the ring to host the Rugby World Cup, with USA Rugby clearing the first hurdle in an attempt to bring the game’s global showpiece to North America for either the 2027, 2029 or 2031 events. USA Rugby was on Thursday “formally accepted”
1:12 AM ET LAS VEGAS — The Vegas Golden Knights are going to the semifinals for the third time in four years — not bad for a team that has been around for only four years. Vegas knocked out the Colorado Avalanche with a 6-3 win in Game 6 on Thursday, its fourth straight win
Sarah Storey won one of four golds for British riders on day one of the Para-cycling Road World Championships. The 14-time Paralympic champion defended her C5 time trial title in Estoril, Portugal, with fellow Briton Crystal Lane-Wright second. Steve Bate and his pilot Adam Duggleby took the men’s tandem B trial while Lora Fachie and
1:47 PM ET The College Football Playoff management committee will consider expanding to a 12-team format when it meets in Chicago next week, marking the first step in what could be another historic change for the sport’s postseason. The three-page proposal, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN, calls for the bracket to include
Former India opener Wasim Jaffer is known for his quick-witted posts and replies on social media. On Friday, he once again entertained his followers by posting an epic reply on a tweet shared by India’s spin wizard Ravichandran Ashwin. On Friday, Ashwin had posted a snap with his India teammate Cheteshwar Pujara from the Southampton
12:58 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN The Milwaukee Bucks are still breathing in the playoffs — barely. Already trailing 2-0 in an Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Brooklyn Nets, and finding themselves trailing by 3 with 83 seconds to go in Game 3 Thursday night at Fiserv Forum after a Kevin Durant 3-pointer, the Bucks
1:39 AM ET Jeff Wagenheim Claressa Shields is a champion. She has showed that for years in the boxing ring, winning gold medals in two Olympics and becoming a three-division world champion (twice undisputed) in an undefeated professional in-ring career. On Thursday night, she showed a different side of her championship mettle by surviving a
7:23 PM ET Jeff Wagenheim The main event will transform one of the most decorated champions in sports into a fresh-faced neophyte. Claressa Shields, the undefeated two-division boxing champion, will make her mixed martial arts debut in the PFL main event on Thursday in Atlantic City, New Jersey. But Shields’ lightweight bout against Brittney Elkin
11:33 AM ET Friday’s French Open men’s semifinals are evenly split between the new and old guard: On one side, two fast-rising youngsters try to solidify their claim as the future face of the sport; on the other, a pair of no-doubt legends battle it out with history on the line. While some tennis observers
4:50 AM BST Dual international Lote Tuqiri knows better than most what winning the right to host the Rugby World Cup would mean for Australian rugby. Having been enticed over to the 15-player game in the lead-up to the tournament, the former Wallabies winger was blown away by the scale of rugby’s showpiece in 2003
11:04 PM ET Associated Press DALY CITY, Calif. — Irish rookie Leona Maguire shot a 7-under 65 on Thursday at Lake Merced to take the first-round lead in the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship, the tour’s second straight event on the San Francisco Peninsula. Lexi Thompson followed her Sunday back-nine meltdown in the U.S. Women’s Open at