Another Ali will box at Madison Square Garden.
Laila Ali, the daughter of boxing great Muhammad Ali, will make her debut 35 years after her father lost to "Smokin" Joe Frazier at the Garden.
She'll be on the Nov. 11 undercard of the IBF heavyweight bout between champion Wladimir Klitschko and undefeated Calvin Brock. All three appeared at a news conference on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.
Ali, the WBC light heavyweight champion, is 22-0 with 19 knockouts since her pro debut in 1999.
`excited'
"I'm excited to be at Madison Square Garden, the mecca of boxing," Ali said. "There's a lot of pressure being Ali's daughter, but I always try to do my best. I've got to do my thing -- he's already done his thing."
Ali's opponent will be determined soon.
"We just signed with this fight last week," said her adviser, Damon Bingham. "We're negotiating, we should know in a day or two."
Muhammad Ali attended his daughter's last fight in Berlin, where Laila Ali stopped Sweden's Asa Sandell in the fifth round on Dec. 17. Muhammad Ali, who at 64 is slowed by Parkinson's disease, walked ringside to kiss his daughter.
`sweet feeling'
He's proud that I won, even though he'd rather me not fight," she said of her father, who has attended more than half her fights. "He gets in the ring and gives me a kiss, it's a really sweet feeling."
It's possible the elder Ali will turn up at the Garden, where he dazzled crowds during his career. He lost the heavyweight crown to Frazier in a 15-round epic in 1971, but won the rematch three years later.
"It just depends on how he feels," she said. "He has his good days and bad days. He has a disease, so it's something that he deals with. But he's still traveling and getting around the world. People are always concerned about him. I don't have the energy to do as much as he does."
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB