Boxing

Brian Castaño could easily have won his fight with Jermell Charlo last July, despite fighting on Charlo’s turf, despite giving up five inches in height and six inches in reach, despite being significantly less experienced and despite being nearly a 3-1 underdog. Castaño rocked Charlo several times and forced Charlo to mount a desperate late

CBS Sports Illustration Pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez’s “daring to be great” tour hit a snag last Saturday when his bid to challenge unbeaten WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol ended in a unanimous decision loss.   Alvarez, 31, who has won titles in four divisions, failed in the end to one-up his incredible 2021 campaign

9:47 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN LAS VEGAS — Dmitry Bivol pinned Canelo Alvarez on the ropes in Round 5 on Saturday and unleashed a six-punch combination, most of which landed flush. This was a rare sight, the pound-for-pound king vulnerable and in real trouble. It’s dangerous to throw that many punches in succession against such

Please don’t attribute what happened to Canelo Alvarez in the ring at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday at the hands of Dmitry Bivol to Bivol’s advantage in size. That would be wrong. Size didn’t have an impact on this fight. Bivol retained his WBA light heavyweight title because, on this night at least, he was the

Canelo Alvarez dared to be great, but so did Dmitry Bivol. Bivol was surprisingly active, throwing far more punches than the Mexican superstar, and successfully retained his light heavyweight title in a shocking upset. Bivol won a unanimous decision Saturday at T-Mobile Arena Saturday, outworking, outlanding and outboxing Alvarez to retain his WBA championship. All

Indian men’s boxing team High Performance Director Santiago Nieva has stepped down from his role.© Twitter Indian men’s boxing team High Performance Director Santiago Nieva has stepped down from his role after serving for five years, the national federation said on Saturday. Nieva, who took charge of the national team in 2017, will take up

Getty Images Over the past seven years, in the immediate aftermath of former pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather’s retirement, boxing fans have become so accustomed to Canelo Alvarez daring to be great in terms of his matchmaking that his opponents can often get lumped together.   Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs), whose lone pro defeat came against

LAS VEGAS — There are, as they say in the parlance, plenty of good seats still available for the WBA light heavyweight title fight on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena between Canelo Alvarez and Dmitry Bivol. That’s largely due to the lack of awareness Bivol has with the American fan base. Alvarez is one of the

7:49 AM ET Katie Taylor continues to lead the way in the ESPN women’s pound-for-pound rankings. But the battle for No. 2 continues after a great weekend of boxing. Taylor (21-0, 6 KOs) defeated Amanda Serrano (42-2-1, 30 KOs) by split decision in one of the best fights of the year. A back-and-forth battle in

LAS VEGAS — The script in nearly every Canelo Alvarez fight over the last several years is identical: He launches a withering body assault early in the fight. His opponent, fighting the biggest fight of his life, battles back hard. Eventually, the body shots begin to take their toll and Alvarez then targets the head.

LAS VEGAS — One of the things I guarantee will happen is if someone ever says a modern boxer would have been good in any era, a certain segment of the fan base will have a conniption and question your sanity. They’ll bring up a fighter from the 1930s that they never saw and insist

Getty Images The biggest fight in the history of women’s boxing is set to go down on Saturday night when undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor defends her four world titles against unified featherweight champion Amanda Serrano. The showdown takes place at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the first time women have headlined a card from

7:00 AM ET Bob Arum at Top Rank headquarters in Las Vegas. Al Powers for ESPN ON THE SECOND FLOOR of the events center at Resorts World Las Vegas hotel and casino, Bob Arum takes small, careful steps. He moves slowly. His eyes look toward the floor with each step, as if the gravity of his

A bizarre series of social media call-outs and responses between UFC No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter Kamaru Usman and No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer Canelo Alvarez has taken yet another odd turn. The discussion began Wednesday when Usman’s manager Ali Abdelaziz, seemingly out of nowhere, called Alvarez “an absolute chicken” and accused him of fighting no-name boxers

The odds are astounding, at least on the surface. Shakur Stevenson is a -700 favorite to defeat Oscar Valdez on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden in their super featherweight unification bout. Valdez is an unbeaten world champion with a 77% knockout ratio, and the odds would suggest he’s little more than a tune-up. At

Tyson Fury retained his WBC heavyweight crown on Saturday, stopping Dillian Whyte in round six of an all-British bout at a delirious Wembley Stadium before repeating his suggestion that he would now retire. The win for the self-styled ‘Gypsy King’, fighting on UK soil for the first time in four years, was witnessed by 94,000

This version of Tyson Fury, the guy who knocked out Deontay Wilder twice and put Dillian Whyte to sleep Saturday with one of the best uppercuts you’ll ever see, would be a difficult out for any fighter in boxing history. Yes, that includes Muhammad Ali. And George Foreman. And Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis and

7:32 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN LONDON — Tyson Fury remained on top of the heavyweight division, if not the sport, with a picture-perfect right uppercut that sent Dillian Whyte crashing to the mat for a sixth-round TKO victory on Saturday before 94,000-plus at Wembley Stadium. The obvious next fight for Fury is a matchup with