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A logical pairing. One’s a washed-up former champion who didn’t know when to quit, the other’s Evander Holyfield.No no, I kid. There are obvious differences between them. For instance, Holyfield had to defeat some legit heavyweights, not just tomato cans, to earn his title. Zing.The next time you hear someone call Mayweather/Pacquiao the fight of the century, you tell ‘em it’s not even the best fight in May. In fact, Romney is slated to fight former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield in the marquis event during a several-bout evening at the Rail Event Center near the Union Pacific Depot...

 38°  Nation 3 Mitt Romney to fight Evander Holyfield in charity boxing event March 16, 2015 10:27 PM By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY - Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and five-time heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield are set to square off at a charity fight night event in May. Romney's son Josh Romney confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that his father will participate in the May 15 black-tie event in Salt Lake City. In full protective gear, Mitt Romney and Holyfield will spar in the boxing ring for a lighthearted fight before the...

"Mark Twain said boxing is the only sport where a slave, if he's successful, can rub shoulders with royalty," says former heavyweight Mike Tyson, who once knocked out 19 opponents in a row. "Can you imagine that? Just by fighting another human being, he can meet a king, a prince, a queen, eat at the same table with them, be invited to the castle." Or in modern times, make $30 million in one fight, build your own castle, stock it with tigers, and still wake up every morning the pawn of powerful men who make money off your sweat. When...

LAS VEGAS – After years of frustration and disappointment, following many starts and stops, perhaps the most talked about boxing match in history is finally a reality. Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced Friday that he's agreed to fight Manny Pacquiao in a welterweight bout May 2 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas. It's a bout the public has been calling for since late 2009 and pits the two finest boxers of their generation in a historic event.

Some fighters seize the public’s imagination with awe-inspiring one-punch knockouts. Others bedazzle with bursts of supersonic speed. A few grab headlines with their retina-burning attire, their inspirational life stories or their inflammatory trash talk. Onetime light heavyweight champion Harold Johnson, who died Thursday morning at 86, didn’t take any shortcuts to earn his greatness. He was a solid citizen in a sport saturated by crazies, criminals and characters. He was the guy who clocked in every day and did his job in such a classy, dignified manner that one couldn’t help but admire his excellence. Johnson was a beautifully proportioned...

A deal is on the table for a super fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd in Las Vegas, Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum told Kevin Iole Yahoo Sports. Arum says the Pacquiao has agreed to his the deal, as have Mayweather's "representatives." The way Arum frames it, all that's left is for Mayweather himself to agree to the deal. Iole reports that Pacquiao has agreed to a 60-40 revenue split where Mayweather would made an estimated $120 million and Pacquiao $80 million. The two sides have been unable to make the fight happen for the better part...

Former heavyweight champion Ernie Terrell of Chicago survived 15 punishing rounds in a ferocious 1967 fight with Muhammad Ali. An irate Ali wreaked havoc on Mr. Terrell, who had called him Cassius Clay instead of addressing him by his then-new Muslim name. Ali danced around Mr. Terrell and repeatedly jabbed him in the match, shouting, “What’s my name?!” ... Mr. Terrell, 75, who lived for decades near 111th and Halsted, died Tuesday at Little Company of Mary Hospital of complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his wife said. He was 75 ...

On Saturday night at the O2 Arena in Hamburg Germany, Wladimir Klitschko (63-3-0, 53 knockouts) pulverized Kubrat Pulev (20-1, 11 KOs), knocking him out in the fifth round with a lethal left hook. Klitschko’s victory marked his 17th consecutive title defense. He is third in line behind Joe Louis (25) and Larry Holmes (20). At 38, Klitschko seems unbeatable. Eight years into his reign, he has dominated his division more than any other active champion today. He holds the IBF, WBA, and WBO titles, but remains one belt away from realizing his most immediate goal, unifying the heavyweight crown.

"Remember how your grandparents would always tell you life was more difficult for them? And how hard they had to work everyday? Turns out they weren't exaggerating in the slightest."

Manny Pacquiao recently revealed that he pities professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and suggested that he should get to know God instead of flaunting his wealth as Mayweather is known to do. Pacquiao made the comment after Mayweather posted several photographs on his Instagram account, showing Pacquiao knocked down in his past fights with the caption, "Miss Pac Man is broke for a pay day." "I'm not affected by it. I pity him and I pray that someday he would change his ways. He should fear God. 'For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world...

London (AFP) - Frank Maloney, the man behind Britain's former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis's march to the top, is undergoing a sex change and living as a woman called Kellie, she told the Sunday Mirror. The 61-year-old Englishwoman -- who stood for election to be London Mayor for the UKIP Party in 2004 -- has been married twice and has two daughters, but she told the newspaper she had always felt she was a woman.

From Ray Leonard's facebook page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Hqwku_iHRv8

Jimmy Ellis, a heavyweight champion who sparred with an up-and-coming Muhammad Ali and later fought some of the era's best boxers, died Tuesday. He was 74. Ellis died at a Louisville hospital, brother Jerry Ellis said. Jimmy Ellis had Alzheimer's disease in recent years.

Boxing champ Floyd Mayweather claims he broke off his relationship with fiance Shantel Jackson because she had an abortion, TMZ reports. Mayweather’s Instagram and Facebook accounts displayed an image of what appeared to be ultrasound results and analysis showing two fetuses. The Instagram caption reads, “The real reason me and Shantel Christine Jackson @missjackson broke up was because she got a abortion, and I’m totally against killing babies. She killed our twin babies.” The images have since been taken down. Floyd and Shantel went their separate ways last year after the athlete gave her a $10 million engagement ring. She...

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter has died. Sympathetic obituaries say things like "wrongfully convicted" or "exonerated." But the black middleweight-title-contending boxer was neither. Carter, in 1966, murdered three people. But Hollywood later made a movie, "Hurricane," in which Denzel Washington brilliantly portrayed Carter as a wrongfully convicted near-saint, hounded mercilessly by a determined, racist detective. Excellent moviemaking, but it adds more sludge to the widely held notion of the "racist criminal justice system" that supposedly "warehouses" black males for no reason other than wrong place, wrong time, wrong skin. So, what really happened that night in Paterson, N.J., when three people were...

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the boxer who infamously served 19 years in jail after he was wrongly convicted for a triple murder, passed away Sunday in Toronto at the age of 76. Immortalized in a Bob Dylan song and a 1999 feature film, Carter was jailed in 1966 for a fatal shooting at a bar in New Jersey. Although he and his acquaintance John Artis passed a lie detector test and professed their innocence, the all-white jury convicted them. After multiple legal efforts, in 1985 a federal judge ruled that the convictions of Carter and Artis were based "upon an appeal...

TORONTO — Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the boxer whose wrongful murder conviction became an international symbol of racial injustice, has died at 76. John Artis, a longtime friend and caregiver, said Carter died in his sleep Sunday. Carter had been stricken with prostate cancer in Toronto, the New Jersey native’s adopted home. Carter spent 19 years in prison for three murders at a tavern in Paterson, N.J., in 1966. He was convicted alongside Artis in 1967 and again in a new trial in 1976. Carter was freed in November 1985 when his convictions were set aside after years of appeals and...

The rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley played out almost exactly like the first instalment. The only difference was the outcome. Pacquiao reclaimed the welterweight title he surrendered amid controversy to Bradley two years ago, rectifying one of the most mystifying decisions in boxing history with a clinical points victory before 15,601 rollicking fans. Two of the ringside judges had Pacquiao winning 116-112, the third scored it 118-112. The Guardian had it 116-112. So few put stock in Bradley’s split-decision win in June 2012 – a verdict that reeked of incompetence at best – that whatever redemption was wrought...

Fifty years ago today, Muhammad Ali “shocked the world” and beat one of the most fearsome fighters ever to put on a pair of boxing gloves, heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. But what if that storied fight was not what it seemed? It happened Feb. 25, 1964, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The film clip and sound bite have now become part of the American story — Liston quitting his stool before the eighth round, a young Cassius Clay, as Ali was known then, bouncing around the ring, waving his hands, yelling to the reporters at ringside who thought he...

In case you missed it, celebrity fight promoter Damon Feldman recently set up another of these pay per view boxing events between George Zimmerman and DMX (who is apparently a musician fallen on hard times). These celebrity boxing events are not a new thing. TheyÂ’ve been held before, featuring various B list actors, failed childhood stars and other media figures. Danny Bonaduce went through a lot of this as an adult when his career fizzled after the Partridge Family years. But back to ZimmermanÂ… The proceeds from the show were slated to go to charity. But there is still a...