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Former heavyweight champion Ken Norton, who beat Muhammad Ali and later lost a controversial decision to him in Yankee Stadium, died Wednesday at a local care facility, his son said. He was 70. Ken Norton Jr., a coach with the Seattle Seahawks, confirmed the death to The Associated Press before handing the phone to his wife, too distraught to talk

Tommy Morrison, the former heavyweight champion who stood toe-to-toe with Lennox Lewis and George Foreman and later tested positive for HIV, died Monday. He was 44... He was a prodigious puncher whose bid to fight in the 1988 Seoul Olympics ended at the hands of Ray Mercer, who later dealt Morrison his first professional loss. He had a starring role in "Rocky V" alongside Sylvester Stallone. And perhaps most memorably, Morrison tested positive for HIV when the virus still carried a significant stigma, only to declare later the test was false...

Inside the smaller theater at Madison Square Garden about five years ago, shortly before a world title fight, Emile Griffith was introduced one more time to the crowd. He rose shakily from his seat, waved ever so briefly and then sat down. The applause kept going. Revered in retirement perhaps more than during his fighting days, Griffith died Tuesday at 75 after a long battle with pugilistic dementia.

Many athletes erupted in outrage on Saturday when George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the 2012 shooting death of unarmed Florida teen-ager Trayvon Martin. But rather than just take to Twitter to express his outrage, Terrell Gausha, a member of the 2012 U.S. Olympic boxing team, is planning to make a more visible protest against the jury's verdict. Gausha told TMZ that he will never wear the American colors into the ring or on his body again. At the 2012 Olympics in London, Gausha frequently draped himself in the flag. But, he told TMZ, no...

BOSTON — It was a blow the immigrant boxer could not withstand: after capturing his second consecutive title as the Golden Gloves heavyweight champion of New England in 2010, Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev, 23, was barred from the national Tournament of Champions because he was not a United States citizen. The cocksure fighter, a flamboyant dresser partial to white fur and snakeskin, had been looking forward to redeeming the loss he suffered the previous year in the first round, when the judges awarded his opponent the decision, drawing boos from spectators who considered Mr. Tsarnaev dominant. From one year to the...

Bay Area boxer legend Luis Molina, who was San Jose native recently passed away.

(CNSNews.com) – Although no group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s deadly bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, a leading al-Qaeda ideologue last year recommended that jihadists in America include sporting events in their list of prospective terror targets.

Former heavyweight contender Carl “The Truth” Williams passed away today after a long battle with esophageal cancer. He was only 53. During a 15-year career that spanned from 1982-1997, Williams compiled a 30-10 (21 KOs) record against the best the division had to offer.

When our Lord says turn the other cheek, He speaks of a spiritual strategy to humble the self and then perhaps, to win other souls to Him. Not all the proud are shamed by humility and it seems pretty clear that those who smote the One who offered them salvation did not turn their hearts to him when He turned His cheek to them. Saint John Cantius won the hearts of some bandits when he called them back to take some money they had overlooked, but that is an instance rare enough to have become the lore of hagiography. Sane...

Two weeks before Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship, the boxer’s trainer met secretly with FBI agents and identified members of the Nation of Islam who were associates of Ali, according to bureau records. In a "confidential" February 1964 memo to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a supervisor in the bureau’s Miami office reported on a meeting with “trainer-manager” Angelo Dundee and Dundee’s brother Chris, who was promoting the fight between Liston and Ali (who was then still known as Cassius Clay).

Florentino Fernandez, whose entertaining brawling style helped him become one of the top middleweight contenders and popular local fighters of the 1960s, died of a heart attack Monday morning in Miami, his son, Florentino Jr., said. Fernandez was 76.

Manny Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum claims that Floyd Mayweather Jr. once turned down a $100-million offer to fight Pacquiao. Speaking with ESPN 1100 in Las Vegas, Arum said there was a proposal on the table for a $180 million purse — 55% ($100 million) would have gone to Mayweather, and 45% ($80 million) would have gone to Pacquiao. Why'd he allegedly turn a hundred million dollars down? Arum claims that Mayweather hates fighting left-handed, unorthodox fighters. His closest fights have been against guys like this, and Arum says Mayweather becomes "completely vulnerable" against them. Mayweather is undefeated, and the chance...

Hector Camacho, a boxer known for his lightning-quick hands and flamboyant personality who emerged from a delinquent childhood in New York’s Spanish Harlem to become a world champion in three weight classes, died on Saturday in San Juan, P.R., after being shot while sitting in a parked car. He was 50.

Doctors say famed Puerto Rican boxer Hector "Macho" Camacho is clinically "brain dead" after being shot in the face. Dr. Ernesto Torres said at a news conference Thursday that doctors are still performing tests on Camacho before meeting with his family. Torres had said late Wednesday that Camacho was showing irregular and intermittent brain activity.

Former world boxing champion Hector 'Macho' Camacho was in critical condition today after being shot in his native Puerto Rico, with his family facing the decision of taking him off life support as his condition worsened. Doctors had said Camacho was expected to survive after he was shot in the face while sitting in a car on Tuesday night in his hometown of Bayamon. However his condition worsened overnight and his heart stopped at one point, said Dr Ernesto Torres, director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. 'He's battling minute to minute. This is the most important...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Ex-boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho was in critical condition Tuesday after being shot in Puerto Rico, medical officials said.

Carmen Basilio, the welterweight and middleweight boxing champion of the 1950s who fought two brutal bouts with Sugar Ray Robinson, winning his middleweight title and then losing it to him, died Wednesday in Rochester. Basilio, who lived in Irondequoit, a suburb of Rochester, was 85.

DETROIT — Emanuel Steward, earnest yet easygoing, proved rough and tough wasn’t the only way to win in boxing. With a twinkle in his eyes, a smile on his face and a soothing voice, Steward developed unique bonds in and out of the ring with a long line of champions that included Thomas Hearns, Lennox Lewis, Oscar De La Hoya and Wladimir Klitschko. Steward, owner of the Kronk Gym in Detroit and an International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer, died Thursday. He was 68. His executive assistant, Victoria Kirton, said Steward died Thursday at a Chicago hospital. She didn’t disclose...

Orlando Cruz from San Juan, Puerto Rico and ranked the No4 featherweight by the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) has openly admitted his is "a proud, gay man". He added: "I've been fighting for more than 24 years and as I continue my ascendant career I want to be true to myself. I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career. I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud, gay man."...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Corrie Sanders, the South African southpaw who knocked out Wladimir Klitschko in one of the great upsets in heavyweight boxing, has died after being shot by robbers at a restaurant during a family celebration.