Latest news with #knockout
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Callum Simpson To Take On 'Knockout King' Ivan Zucco
Callum Simpson To Take On 'Knockout King' Ivan Zucco originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Prepare yourself for a night to remember in Barnsley, local boy Simpson will put his unbeaten, i.e., perfect record, on the line. Advertisement Simpson will face off against Italian knockout artist Ivan Zucco for the European super middleweight title at Oakwell Stadium. The eagerly awaited match is scheduled to happen on June 7th, 2025, and the confirmed venue of the match is Oakwell Football Ground, Barnsley. This is much more than a fight - it's a homecoming party. Simpson sold out this venue in 48 hours last summer when winning the British and Commonwealth titles - such a unique feat for local talent. Simpson returns now with over 15,000 fans expected to fill the football stadium as they urge on their hero. Simpson enters at 17-0 with 12 knockouts, however, he has never fought a fighter quite like Zucco before. The 29-year-old Italian is a southpaw pounder and has stopped 18 men as part of 21 bouts. Advertisement "Callum must be careful, I have a very powerful punch," said Ivan Zucco to the press during a promotional visit at Barnsley, England, in May 2025. What makes this exciting is that either man can end the match with one punch. Simpson yearns to become the first Barnsley-born fighter to win a European title, while Zucco envisions taking the belt back to Italy. The winner is offered more than bragging rights, yet the potential to step closer towards a world title shot. Simpson has already outlined his ambition to "fight for world honours," and beating an undefeated knockout artist like Zucco would certainly get noticed. As with every boxing promotion, there is one guarantee - somebody is losing their undefeated record on June 7th. This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 1, 2025, where it first appeared.
BBC News
2 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Glasgow 36-18 Stormers: What Smith said
Glasgow Warriors head coach Franco Smith tells Premier Sports: "We were a little bit off it [at the end of the regular season] but I'm glad we could bounce back."We speak the whole season about the quality of the competition and quality of the sides. There was no easy game, always tough. "Rory Darge played well, Henco Venter and Tom Jordan were also excellent tonight. "It's good to have played Friday night. We get to wait and see and whatever comes our way, we will make sure we recover well."Good people make good players. We tried too hard to finish second in the competition and the weight of playing the semi-finals at home became too much in the end."It's a different competition. It's knockout rugby. It brings more excitement. The boys have learned and adapted. They really work hard and they believe in what we do."
BBC News
5 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Ritchie embracing Edinburgh jeopardy & Lions snubs
Young and carefree, Jamie Ritchie played his first game for Edinburgh on an October evening in Dublin in 2014. Gnarled and focused, on Saturday afternoon in Pretoria he might play his Edinburgh win against the Bulls in the quarter-final of the United Rugby Championship - it's 3-2 Edinburgh in the last five meetings with all of them settled by eight points or fewer - then the story continues. If they lose, the story ends. Eleven years, 130-something appearances and done. Next stop for the 28-year-old back-row: a frenzied, and ultimately, successful bid for a place in the quarter-final, Ritchie feels like Edinburgh have effectively been playing knockout rugby for weeks."Yeah, it does feel a bit like that," the 28-year-old says on the Scotland Rugby Podcast."I think it means we're well prepared for the actual knockout rugby that we're playing now. We've been playing well with a little bit of jeopardy. "In games that we know we need to win, we've stepped up and played well, so that builds confidence."We've had a bit of jeopardy in the last few games and we've really had to lean into that. A lot of the games we've been playing have been physical encounters. We've needed to step up."We know the Bulls are coming with a physical threat and we always seem to step up in those games, so that's something we'll be looking to do again at the weekend. "Loftus is a hard place to go to but it's not necessarily a place that they've not been beaten at."Without the tangible rewards to show for it, Ritchie has been one of Edinburgh's great players of the professional era. You might say that his time with the club has been dramatic from the mid-December 2015, Millie, his girlfriend then and his wife now, went into labour four weeks prematurely. It was a Friday night. Ritchie was due to make his first start for Edinburgh the following day in a Challenge Cup game at London was 2am when the maternity ward staff told Ritchie that the baby's arrival wasn't imminent and that he should get some sleep, go to London, play his game and come back. He slept for two hours, made the plane, and reached into his pocket for his phone before started to ring, 'Millie calling...'. Oscar had been born. Ritchie was 19 years the whole family have a connection with the club that runs deep. You could see that on the night he said his goodbye to the Hive when coming off the bench in a must-win game against Ulster a few weeks back."Very emotional, but a really nice night to finish it on," he says. "The recognition from the crowd when I came on was super-special. "I feel really privileged and proud to have been a part of this club for such a long time. Hopefully, I've shown that I care through the way that I played and hopefully the fans have picked up on that." Ritchie has been playing some outstanding rugby this season, a return to the high-aggression, high-impact stuff that elevated him to the captaincy of a lull, his game has been in such good order that he put himself in the conversation for Lions selection, if not actually ultimately in the squad."Personally, I feel like I'd done all I could in terms of how I performed, so I was comfortable with that," he says on missing out on Andy Farrell's group. "It's out of my control. For 2021 tour I feel like I was further away than I was this year, but I was more upset then. I'm a bit more mature now in terms of how I react to these things. They might come around, they might not."I said this to my wife because she was quite upset when we watched it together. I said to her, 'if you'd looked at us in the position we were in a year ago after the Six Nations, where it hadn't gone the way I wanted to in terms of selection and missing out on the captaincy and humming and hollering about whether or not I was going to go on a summer tour."'If we'd said we'd be sitting here at the Lions announcement day feeling like we were in with a real shout and then disappointed when it didn't happen, we would absolutely have taken it'. That's kind of the perspective I'm taking on it."He's bound for Perpignan, crossing his fingers every day that when he gets there they will still be a Top 14 team. They are in a relegation play-off spot with two games to focus, though, is not on France or the Lions, it's on Edinburgh and Pretoria. The end - or maybe not? The last act - or is there another twist? Whatever happens, the greatest certainty is that Ritchie will empty himself out there.
The Independent
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Bakole's Sparring Tales: Hype or heavyweight truth ahead of vital fight on Canelo card?
Martin Bakole is hoping to bounce back after a second-round knockout loss to Joseph Parker last year – he takes on Efe Ajagba on the Canelo vs Scull undercard in Riyadh tomorrow, Saturday, May 3. The Congolese man possess immense power in both hands and claims to be the most-avoided heavyweight in the world because he has sparred with, and given a hard time to, the biggest names in the heavyweight division. Regaling stories of broken noses, wobbly legs and body shots, Bakole is either a great salesman or a genuine heavyweight threat. Which heavyweights does Bakole claim to have smashed in sparring? Joe Joyce The only claim of Bakole's with any evidence to back it up is that he and Joe Joyce went toe-to-toe in sparring. The video, posted to X in March, last year garnered a lot of attention in the boxing community. The clip shows he and Joyce exchanging single shots before Bakole unloads with a three-shot combination that knocks Joyce's headguard off. The post was captioned: 'This is the reason why UK heavyweights are avoiding me guys.' Bakole may not have been telling the whole story, however, as 'The Juggernaut' and his team responded with a video from what seems to be a different sparring session as Bakole is wearing different attire. It shows Bakole on his knees in the ring, looking like he was about to throw up into a bucket. Joyce's team claimed this was from an accumulation of body shots – Bakole refuted this, claiming he had eaten eggs on the way to sparring that had not agreed with him. Daniel Dubois Throughout 2024, Bakole seemed unable to go the length of an interview without mentioning or being asked about sparring with Daniel Dubois. Revealing what happens behind closed doors is usually not the done thing but Bakole was using it to get himself closer to a fight with the IBF champion. He told iFL TV: 'I broke his nose twice and stopped him. That is not a lie because, he would never come say that I am lying,' These claims have never been confirmed, nor have they been addressed by Dubois, but Bakole does admit that he uses these sparring stories to sell himself. "People are telling me not to talk about sparring,' he told talkSport. 'But people forget I'm from Africa and it's very hard for me to sell tickets, so I need to sell myself." Oleksandr Usyk Heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk is another of the names that the heavy hitter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has claimed to have roughed up in sparring. "Even Usyk, I don't think he'd say yes (to fighting me)," Bakole said on Sky Sports, 'because I stopped him in Dubai in sparring. He knows how good I am. I don't know if he'll say yes again to fight me as well. I am telling the truth." The Usyk camp responded to this and although they gave credit to Bakole as one of the best sparring partners Usyk has had, they insisted that it was their man who nearly stopped the Congolese slugger. Anthony Joshua AJ sparred with Bakole in Sheffield whilst still under the tutelage of Rob McCracken. Bakole claims that he was one of seven guys to spar Joshua on the first day. Once the second day rolled around it was only him and Agit Kabayel left in the gym. He sparred six rounds with the former unified heavyweight champion. "The first round went nice," Bakole told talkSport."But AJ tried to knock me out but I was like, 'What the hell?'" So my coach said 'show him', and I caught him with a beautiful left hand. It shook his head and shook his legs. Everyone went quiet in the gym, I used the left hook yeah and people saw it." Bakole has made bold claims outside the ring — now he must deliver inside it. A convincing performance against Ajagba this weekend would be the first step toward proving he belongs among the heavyweight elite.
The Independent
6 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Frank Warren predicts step up to world level for ‘special' Itauma
Moses Itauma will look to extend his unbeaten record this weekend against Mike Balogun at the OVO Hydro Arena on the Josh Taylor vs Ekow Essuman undercard. This will be Itauma's first fight of 2025 after a short battle with injury and he will be looking to pick up where he left off last year, with a knockout. His promoter Frank Warren has predicted a world championship and more for the heavyweight. Warren, on the Queensberry Promotions YouTube channel, said: 'Moses, I feel, is something special. He's only 20 years of age and he's looking the business. As he's maturing, he's only going to get better and better.' Although Mike Tyson's record for the youngest heavyweight champion is now out of reach for Itauma, the Queensberry boss is already eyeing up a record held by Naseem Hamed. He said: 'He's not going to get that record now of becoming the youngest-ever heavyweight champion, but he could become Britain's youngest ever champion.' With Itauma already ranked in the top ten across three of the four major organisations, the Brit is at the same level as Martin Bakole and Filip Hrgovic. A fight with Bakole is one that Warren would be happy to make. He told BoxNation last week that Itauma would knock out the Congolese heavy hitter. Itauma had the opportunity to address the rumours of such a fight today before the Taylor-Essuman press conference. He dismissed Bakole as a spent force in the heavyweight division. Itauma told talkSport: 'Bakole is probably not a wise idea, because he's not the man he once was. If he manages to get that 'bogeyman' title back, then it's a good opportunity to fight him. But you wouldn't fight a man after he's just been knocked out by Joseph Parker and has had a trash performance against Efe Ajagba – what do you get out of that?' Frank Warren is confident that the Kent fighter will be the mandatory challenger for a heavyweight title soon. Warren told BoxNation: 'This year is a big year for him, it's a big year for British heavyweight boxing. A big fight on the 19th of July [Oleksandr Uysk vs Daniel Dubois] at Wembley – four belts on the line. [ Itauma's ] got his eyes on that, and he will be getting close to becoming a mandatory for a champion soon.' Watch the very best boxing with a DAZN subscription DAZN is the home of combat sports, broadcasting over 185 fights a year from the world's best promoters, including Matchroom, Queensberry, Golden Boy, Misfits, PFL, BKFC, GLORY and more. An Annual Saver subscription is a one-off cost of £119.99 / $224.99 (for 12 months access), that's just 64p / $1.21 per fight. There is also a Monthly Flex Pass option (cancel any time) at £24.99 / $29.99 per month. A subscription includes weekly magazine shows, comprehensive fight library, exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and podcasts and vodcasts.
