Sports

The weekend brings four major main events and some entertaining undercard bouts from California to Texas to Japan. Middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin faces fellow champion Ryota Murata in a highly anticipated fight in Saitama, Japan. A GGG victory will put him in position to face Canelo Alvarez in a trilogy fight, this time at super

3:57 PM ET Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson will miss the first two games of the regular season after his three-game suspension, stemming from an incident at the end of the 2021 season, was reduced to two games, a source confirmed to ESPN. During a bench clearing incident with the Detroit Tigers in late

7:00 AM ET Tim KavanaghESPN.com Close Tim Kavanagh is a senior NHL editor for ESPN. He’s a native of upstate New York. Throughout the course of a season, players that have been traded or signed elsewhere in free agency will skate against former teammates, and this process plays out hundreds of times. Tonight’s game at

3:34 PM ET Associated Press HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — Simplification will be the morning-line favorite at Gulfstream Park for Saturday’s $1 million, Grade 1 Florida Derby, one of the last big prep races for the Kentucky Derby. Simplification was given 5-2 early odds. White Abarrio was narrowly installed as the second choice at 3-1. Simplification

5:53 PM ET PORTO, Portugal — Cristiano Ronaldo is heading to Qatar, but Mohamed Salah isn’t and neither is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose dream of becoming the first outfield player to bridge a 16-year gap between appearances at the World Cup fizzled out in a late, fruitless substitute rescue act for Sweden in Poland. Every World

3:37 PM BST Prop Marlie Packer scored a hat trick of tries as England got their Six Nation’s title defence underway with a 57-5 victory against Scotland at Edinburgh’s DAM Health Stadium on Saturday. The result was the Red Roses’ 19th-straight win, breaking the record for most consecutive Test match wins, which was set by

8:07 AM ET Mike Coppinger 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 After a slow start to the year, the boxing schedule heats up starting next month. April 9 really kicks the action off

7:53 AM ET The first three months of the year are nearly in the books, but which UFC fighters have surprised and stood out most thus far? More importantly, are they here to stay? The heavyweight division looks to be making way for new stars, as Tai Tuivasa survived a rock fight with Derrick Lewis

7:00 PM ET Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas — Scottie Scheffler is the hottest player in golf and now has the ranking to prove it. Six weeks after his first PGA Tour victory, Scheffler won the Dell Technologies Match Play for his third title in his past five starts, this one enough to move him to

1:04 PM ET Andrew LopezESPN MIAMI — When news first broke on Wednesday that the New York City mandate that prevented unvaccinated athletes from playing in home games has been lifted, Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving said he had to keep pinching himself to make sure it was real. On Thursday, New York City mayor

2:43 PM ET BEREA, Ohio — Deshaun Watson said that he has never disrespected women and that he was surprised by the allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate conduct that have been made against him. “I know these allegations [are] very, very serious,” Watson said. “But I’ve never assaulted any woman. I never disrespected any

7:30 AM ET The 2022 NHL trade deadline had a little bit of everything. Stars moving to Stanley Cup contenders. Rebuilding teams growing treasure troves of picks and prospects. A canceled deal between division rivals. Kevin Weekes popping out of my hotel’s ice machine to break a trade. (I might have hallucinated that last one.)

12:35 PM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” FORT MYERS, Fla. — When Trevor Story sat down at a news conference on Wednesday morning for his official introduction as the newest member of the Boston Red Sox, more than 72

1:18 PM ET D’Arcy MaineESPN.com Ashleigh Barty had just won the 2019 French Open and was standing on the court waiting for her team to join her. It was her first major title, and the realization of every young tennis player’s dream. Her longtime coach Craig Tyzzer rushed to be by her side, preparing an

8:00 AM ET The 2023 recruiting cycle is in full swing with 67 of the ESPN Junior 300 recruits already committed. Notre Dame has gotten off to the best start thus far with eight ESPN Jr. 300 commitments in the class. Among those, five are ranked in the top 65 with defensive end Keon Keeley

12:55 PM ET Associated Press BORDEAUX, France — Twenty-six people were arrested in relation to a suspected doping ring in horse racing, prosecutors in France said Wednesday. The Bordeaux prosecutor’s office said those arrested on Tuesday were racehorse trainers and owners, doctors and pharmacists. Of those arrested, 25 were in France and another person was

10:51 AM ET The U.S. men’s national team have had a interesting relationship with the World Cup. After appearing in three of the first four competitions (1930, 1950, 1954), the Yanks missed the next nine before returning, in 1990, thanks to a pivotal qualifying goal by Paul Caligiuri in Trinidad & Tobago. (You can see

8:52 PM ET Associated Press HAMPTON, Ga. — William Byron had a freight train in his rearview mirror. A sitting duck, it seemed. Fortunately for him, all those challengers started jostling against each other rather than working together to take down the leader. While Byron cruised to the checkered flag for the third victory of

8:00 AM ET Kayla Harrison turned away from the Octagon and placed both hands on the barricade behind her. She threw her hands up and screamed “f—!” several times. It was Dec. 11 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Harrison had just witnessed, from the front row, her then-American Top Team training partner Amanda Nunes

6:53 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN George Kambosos won’t be fighting Vasiliy Lomachenko after all. Lomachenko had agreed to a deal last month for a fight with Kambosos on June 5 in Melbourne, Australia, but the two-time Olympic gold medalist has elected to remain in Ukraine with his family rather than leave the country for training