Boxing great Roberto Durán was receiving medical care for a heart problem, the family of the 72-year-old Panamanian said Saturday.
Durán, who was a champion in four different weight classes, “has suffered a health complication due to an atrioventricular blockade”, his family said in a statement on Durán’s Instagram account.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record
Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have labelled an effort to distract from its human rights record.
Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years according to analysis by the Guardian, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football.
Continue reading...Mills Lane, the referee who disqualified Mike Tyson for biting Evander Holyfield’s ears in the 1997 world heavyweight title fight, has died at the age of 85.
Lane’s son, Tommy, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that his father, who had been in poor health since suffering a stroke 20 years ago, died peacefully at a hospice in the Nevada city on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Australia’s former featherweight world champion Johnny Famechon has died in Melbourne at the age of 77.
The boxer’s most memorable victory was his world title win against the Cuban Jose Legra at London’s Albert Hall in 1969.
Continue reading...Kelvin Bilal Fawaz reveals how Farah’s TV interview was a reminder of how his own boxing career was lost to life in immigration limbo
A prodigious talent with the drive and ambition to make it all the way to the top, when Kelvin Bilal Fawaz got the chance to represent Team GB as a boxer at the 2012 Olympics in London it was a dream come true.
Trafficked as a child from Nigeria to the UK and forced into domestic servitude, Fawaz had the opportunity for Olympic glory in the place he now called home.
Continue reading...The unification world title fight between George Kambosos Jr and American Devin Haney will proceed on Sunday after the Australian dramatically made the weight at the second time of asking.
In chaotic and explosive scenes at Margaret Court Arena, Kambosos initially missed the 135lb limit for the lightweight blockbuster, hitting the scales at 135.36lb.
Continue reading...Former world heavyweight champion arrested at Heathrow after alleged assault in west London
The former world heavyweight boxing champion David Haye has appeared in court charged with assault.
Haye, 41, who retired from the sport in 2018, is accused of assaulting Nickesh Jhala at the Hammersmith Apollo in west London on 30 October last year.
Continue reading...Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano face off in April at legendary New York venue where Ali fought Frazier
At the end of April, boxing history will be made. For the first time, two female fighters, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, will face off at New York’s legendary venue Madison Square Garden, in a fight that is predicted to supercharge the sport’s rapid rise in popularity.
For two women to go 10 rounds at the same venue where Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier – twice – and Rocky Marciano knocked out an ageing Joe Louis shows the remarkable, rapid progress that has taken place in the past two decades.
Continue reading...Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko have posted a video on social media, calling for action from around the world to stop what they described as Russian aggression in their country.
'This senseless war is not going to have any winners, but losers,' said Wladimir Klitschko, who has reportedly enlisted in the Ukraine army. 'Don't let it continue happening in Ukraine, don't let it happen in Europe and eventually in the world. United we are strong. Support Ukraine.'
Vitali Klitschko, who is the mayor of Kyiv, has declared a state of emergency and called on the city's 3 million people to stay indoors unless they work in critical sectors
Sylvester Stallone’s attempt to put a new sheen on his Cold War relic of a sequel is a ridiculous and largely pointless undertaking
There’s a tension in the Rocky series between two largely incompatible conceits: Rocky Balboa as the shy, humble, gentleman brawler from working-class Philly or Rocky Balboa as the cartoon avatar of America’s can-do spirit, intrepidly grinding through title matches against stronger, faster, more colorful opponents. The first type won a best picture Oscar for its young writer/star, Sylvester Stallone, who, in classic underdog fashion, was wildly overmatched against All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, and Taxi Driver. The second type dominated the next decade in ever-more garish and cynical vehicles, none dumber than Rocky IV, which pitted The Italian Stallion against Ivan Drago, a dead-eyed, machine-tooled robot of the Soviet empire.
Now that Creed and its sequel have brought the vintage Rocky back — and, in Creed II, the surprisingly affecting return of Dolph Lundgren as Drago — Stallone has retooled Rocky IV to seem more like the original Rocky, at least insofar as such a feat is possible. His new Rocky IV: Rocky Vs. Drago is only a few minutes longer than the original cut, but there’s a significant amount of tinkering in this version, particularly toward the beginning, that’s intended to add depth to Rocky’s relationships to his friend and rival Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) and his wife Adrian (Talia Shire), and remove some of the sillier touches, most notably the infamous robot given to his brother-in-law, Paulie (Burt Young), as a birthday gift.
Continue reading...Boxing helped prizefighter Arifonso Zvenyika overcome real hardship. Now he teaches the sport he loves to aspiring fighters in a Harare ghetto
Beneath a corrugated iron roof in the crowded Harare suburb of Mbare, a group of boys darts back and forth across a smooth concrete floor, firing a series of rapid punches into the air.
A wiry older man, dressed in low-slung tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops, watches their moves, encouraging them to “Jab! Jab! Jab!”.
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Men’s keirin - Kenny (GBR) rode a superb race to nick the semi on the line. Glaetzer (AUS) defended his place well throughout to come second. Both progress into the final. Carlin (GBR) misses out in fourth.
Men’s keirin - Semi-final time for the men’s keirin. Up first we have Glaetzer (AUS), Carlin (GBR), and Kenny (GBR) gunning for a spot in the top three in a field of six.
Continue reading...Sebastian Eubank, also a boxer, found dead days before his 30th birthday
Former middleweight champion Chris Eubank has led tributes to his son Sebastian Eubank, who has been found dead in Dubai days before his 30th birthday.
In a statement, Chris Eubank said the third oldest of his five children had died on Friday. He leaves behind his wife, Salma, and son Raheem, who was born a month ago.
Continue reading...Boxing must address the damage done in the ring and a new book by Tris Dixon lays out what’s left after the final bell rings
The writer, the fighter, the doctor and the widow all look down into the darkness and damage of boxing. They understand the previously untold story of brain trauma in the ring and, as they talk to me, their moving testimony underpins a shared belief that change has to come. There is a measured urgency to their words for they love the fighters and they want to offer their knowledge to help make this brutal sport a little safer.
Damage and death have always framed boxing. This harsh truth means that, despite the chaos outside the ring, boxing is shockingly real. It can maim and even kill but, in a strange paradox, boxing also makes most fighters feel more intensely alive than anything else.
Continue reading...The Mexican fighter talks exclusively about his upcoming bout with Billy Joe Saunders, childhood bullies and the pitfalls of fame
“I love this,” Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez says as he looks around the scattered debris of his gym in San Diego. His intense gaze scans the heavy bags and speed balls, the hand wraps and water bottles, the gloves and head guards, with an empty ring at its very heart. It’s just after 10 in the morning and the familiar clatter and din of his training camp has already begun for the day. Álvarez, the best boxer in the world, turns back to my Zoom screen and then, leaning forward, he speaks in Spanish with surprising ardour for a 30-year-old fighter who has been boxing professionally for more than half his life: “I love it. I’m always motivated because I love boxing.”
It’s strangely moving as we reach the core of a rare one-to-one interview with Álvarez and he switches back to English to say two simple yet compelling sentences. “This is the reality of my life. No boxing, no life.”
Continue reading...One of the greatest world middleweight boxing champions of all time
Marvin Hagler, who has died aged 66, is recognised as one of boxing’s greatest champions, holding the world middleweight title from 1980 to 1987, but his fabled status is assured because of one never-to-be-forgotten night in the old open-air arena at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, in 1985, when he fought and defeated his great rival Thomas Hearns in one of the most thrilling contests the sport has ever produced.
Related: Marvin Hagler, middleweight boxing's towering champion, dies aged 66
Continue reading...The award-winning biopic of Jake LaMotta was released 40 years ago. With these exclusive images, Jay Glennie, who interviewed the cast and crew for a new book, reveals secrets of the film’s shoot
In an acclaimed new film, the story of a night between four major figures – Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali – is brought to life
One thing is certain: vanilla ice cream was eaten. The rest? If only we knew.
The year is 1964 and activist Malcolm X, singer-songwriter Sam Cooke and American football player Jim Brown gather in Miami, Florida, to cheer boxer Muhammad Ali – then Cassius Clay – to his first world heavyweight championship. No celebration is planned because he was not expected to win, so the four repair to Malcolm’s hotel room in the segregated African American part of town.
Continue reading...‘I gambled on Ali getting a knockout, fastening my camera to the lights way above the ring. And Williams landed flat on his back in a good spot’
Everyone assumes the picture I took of Ali v Liston in 1965 is my favourite – it has even been called the greatest sports photograph of all time. But my favourite photograph I ever took is Ali v Williams, no question about it. It’s the only one of my photographs hanging in my home. I’ve shot everything in my career, from Charles Manson to the pope, but I’ve never taken a better photograph than this.
I shot 35 of Ali’s fights. I was ringside for Sports Illustrated when he won the world title in Miami in 1964 and my photo for that made the cover, so by the time of the Cleveland Williams fight I was pretty well established. Williams was a very promising heavyweight but the underdog; the main thing I remember from that night was how excited I was about how I was going to shoot it. Putting a camera over the ring goes way back, maybe to Joe Louis’ days, certainly Sugar Ray Robinson. But the lights that lit up those fights were always 20-25ft over the ring and there was no lens wide enough to capture the whole scene; photographers used fisheye lenses so the ring never quite looked square.
Continue reading...After being abused as a boy in Nigeria and trafficked to London at 14, boxing and piano playing gave him hope and at 32 Bilal Fawaz is finally able to fight professionally
“There is beauty in darkness,” Bilal Fawaz says with a poetic flourish as we sit on an old bench outside the Cricklewood Boxing Gym in this stark corner of north-west London. “I became best friends with darkness and pain a long time ago.”
The sky is sombre, with black clouds rolling in, and Fawaz talks with electrifying force. He is a newly professional boxer but his past is haunting and his future uncertain. Fawaz was abused as a boy in Nigeria and then trafficked to London.
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