Boxing

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

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

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

7:36 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8:06 PM ET WBC flyweight world titleholder Julio Cesar Martinez has withdrawn from his fight against mandatory challenger McWilliams Arroyo because of a hand injury, Matchroom Boxing announced Thursday.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

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,

12:55 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

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

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.

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

7:04 PM ET The rematch between WBC interim heavyweight titleholder Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte has been postponed to March 27 and will now be held in Gibraltar, Matchroom Sports announced Saturday. The fight was originally scheduled for March 6 in London. It was moved because of COVID-19-related travel restrictions in the UK. “In the

7:00 AM ET Eric WoodyardESPN FOR DAMIAN LILLARD, the game wasn’t over. Yes, the Portland Trail Blazers were trailing the Chicago Bulls by five points with 11.5 seconds left on Jan. 30, but he wasn’t about to give up. He made a 37-foot 3-pointer to cut the lead to two. After the ensuing inbounds pass,

2:11 AM ET Oscar Valdez relished in the afterglow of proving a lot of doubters wrong on Saturday night, as his KO victory over Miguel Berchelt was as thorough and as impressive a performance as the new WBC junior lightweight world titlist could have put together. After 10 rounds, most of which were spent dictating

12:21 AM ET Oscar Valdez thoroughly dominated his fight against Miguel Berchelt and surprised a lot of people on his way to winning the WBC junior lightweight world title on Saturday. But the most surprising moment of all was the devastating knockout punch in Round 10 that sent Berchelt falling to the canvas just moments

12:04 AM ET LAS VEGAS — Many expected Saturday’s WBC junior lightweight title fight between Miguel Berchelt and Oscar Valdez to be a back-and-forth battle between two Mexican warriors. As it turned out, the violence was mostly one-way traffic. Valdez (29-0, 23 KOs), a former two-time Olympian, scored a significant upset against Berchelt (38-2, 34

6:45 PM ET Miguel Berchelt puts his WBC junior lightweight world title on the line against Oscar Valdez, a former featherweight titlist, in the main event of a Top Rank on ESPN boxing card Saturday night at the MGM Conference Center in Las Vegas (ESPN and ESPN+, 10 p.m. ET with undercard fights at 6:45