Recent training footage of Terence Crawford has sparked rumours that the pound-for-pound superstar could be planning a comeback. Fellow former welterweight champion Shawn Porter has now weighed in.

Crawford and Porter fought back in 2021 in what turned out to be Porter’s final bout, with ‘Bud’ defending his WBO title via round 10 stoppage and then continuing his welterweight KO streak in clashes with David Avanesyan and Errol Spence Jr to claim the undisputed title at 147lbs.

The Omaha southpaw then got his hands on super-welterweight world honours with a triumph over Israil Madrimov, before the crowning moment of his career – an undisputed super-middleweight title win against Canelo Alvarez.

The undefeated sensation hung up the gloves just three months later, but footage of him back in the gym has led fans to believe that Crawford could soon return.

However, in an interview with About Boxing, Porter all but shut down those suggestions, revealing that Crawford’s retirement plans were in place long before his triumph over Canelo and that his decision was not made without serious thought.

“Without saying too much, I will say that I don’t think he is going to come back. I don’t want to say that I know he is not going to come back because I feel like that is saying too much, but we have had our conversations a long time before he even fought Canelo Alvarez.

“We have had conversations over the years and I knew that time was coming after that Canelo fight, what else do you want to do?”

Instead, it is understood that Crawford’s return to the gym was done to aid stablemate Lester Martinez, who takes on Luka Plantic on Saturday in an attempted second defence of his WBC Interim super-middleweight title.

Philippines’ Ernest John Obiena competes in the men’s pole vault during the IAAF Diamond League athletics meeting, at the Letzigrund Stadium, in Zurich on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

MANILA, Philippines–EJ Obiena settled for fifth place in the Weltklasse Zurich Diamond League on Friday, but secured his spot in the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing, China.

Obiena cleared 5.90 meters to book his ticket to the world championships next year.

The two-time Olympic pole vaulter also attempted 6 meters but failed to clear the height. He finished behind American Chris Nilsen, who also cleared 5.90m but placed higher on countback.

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Mondo Duplantis dominated the meet with a new record of 6.25m. Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis made his career-best 6.20m to earn the silver, while Norway’s Sondre Guttormsen completed the podium after clearing 6.00m.

Obiena has already won eight golds this season. He is also set to compete and defend his title in the Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya next month.

Manchester City were handed an instant Rodri reunion as the Champions League threw up several intriguing ties for Enzo Maresca’s side and leaves the Blues with one big question to answer.

The Blues have failed to go beyond the last eight since winning the trophy in 2023 and will hope that under Maresca they can go deep in the competition this season.

The trip to Barca is the obvious headline from a draw that also includes a gladiatorial home tie against PSG as well as Kevin De Bruyne’s Napoli visiting the Etihad.

It’s a difficult but not daunting set of league fixtures with Sporting Lisbon, Porto, AEK Athens, Leipzig and Lens the other opponents. And the European competition will shine a light on City’s squad depth this season with the Blues having undergone a major summer rebuild.

A host of players have moved on and Elliot Anderson and Ayyoub Bouaddi have arrived with the prospect of more signings to come.

The big question with a few days left in the window is whether City have the depth and the experience to compete on all fronts.

Maresca has seen a wealth of know-how walk out of the door, with Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Nathan Ake and John Stones all leaving having started the Champions League final victory three-and-a-bit years ago. All four are in the Champions League with new clubs this term. Throw in James Trafford, Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez and Savinho, and City are light on numbers just now.

Maresca admits the squad is young and wants more leadership before the window closes. His ideal squad size is 22 senior players supplemented by the likes of Ryan McAidoo, Floyd Samba and Kaden Braithwaite from the academy. At the moment City are short.

Last season Pep Guardiola made wholesale changes for a European date with Bayer Leverkusen and City put in a woeful display to suffer a dismal home defeat which left Guardiola furious. That was a night of failed auditions to get into the first XI and prompted Pep to say to his squad in the changing room after the game: ‘You will have another manager.’

They do now have another manager and the prospect of an enthralling European campaign is one to savour, but the City hierarchy and Director of Football Hugo Viana have to ensure that Maresca’s men are ready.

The Blues chief has a strong record in cup competitions having led Chelsea to the Conference League title and the Club World Cup, dismantling PSG in the final of the latter.

City want more heady European nights, not Leverkusen lows. The big question is: do they have the squad to cope?

Yes, I would hold this week.

The 2-0 loss at Hull was unexpected, and plenty of managers are sitting on two or three United players. That does not mean you have to move this week.

Ipswich at home is still a good fixture and a good chance for Bruno Fernandes and Bryan Mbeumo to respond.

If they blank again, the exits are clean: Bruno (£12m) into Cole Palmer (£9.5m) or Antoine Semenyo (£8.5m); Mbeumo (£8m) into Morgan Rogers (£7.5m) or Phil Foden (£7m).

However, I would give them this game against Ipswich first before making any decision.

Major League Baseball has proposed limiting free-agent signings to several weeks in December and then from early February in each offseason, along with a ban on trades during the gap in between. The plan aims to create more of an offseason transaction flurry similar to those in the NFL and NBA.

The plan offered to the players’ association Thursday is contingent on adoption of the salary cap system MLB proposed in May, which the union has vowed never to accept.

MLB also proposed lowering the maximum in-season options to the minor leagues from five to four and adopting a system of weekly rosters.

Teams would be allowed 14 pitchers, up from 13, when the 26-man roster limit is in effect from the season’s start through Aug. 31.

The union did not immediately respond publicly to the new proposal.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

Enzo Maresca watched his Manchester City side scrape past Bournemouth on the opening day of the season and he knows it could take time to see the best version of his squad.

Enzo Maresca accepts the best version of his Manchester City side is yet to come as he battles the early weeks of the Premier League season and a significant squad rebuild.

The Blues boss has seen a host of players depart this summer and while City broke their transfer record to sign Elliot Anderson for £116m and this week confirmed the arrival of Ayyoub Bouaddi, there is still work to be done in the transfer window.

Maresca wants to add to his squad before Tuesday’s deadline and the squad turnover coupled with players returning later than normal for pre-season due to the World Cup mean it’s difficult for the new boss to get his ideas across quickly and hit the ground running.

“It has been complicated because we start new concept, new things, new manager, even if there are similarities with the previous one (manager),” Maresca said ahead of the Premier League trip to Crystal Palace.

“But in the end the manager is different, the players are different, it has been a little bit complicated because players are late (back from the World Cup), that’s why we have the Marc Guehi solution or probably for tomorrow another different solution. It is my duty, my job, to try to find solutions for the players to try and win games.

“Since I joined the club, I knew that 10 years with the same manager, also the idea was to change players for different reasons. Some are not playing many minutes and decide to leave, players in many circumstances and reasons why, they decide to leave, so I knew that there was a big change to the squad but it is not something I am worried about.”

Asked if we might not see the best of Maresca’s City until later in the season, the Blues boss added: “The only thing I can say is the same thing I say after the Arsenal game and the same thing is now after the Bournemouth game. There are things that we did well in the previous game, there are things we did quite well against Bournemouth, but there are many things that for sure we are going to do better.”

Much of the focus in the Browns‘ training camp and preseason was on the Deshaun Watson vs. Shedeur Sanders quarterback battle, which Watson officially won on Monday.

On Thursday, though, another quarterback with a noteworthy background finally took the stage. Sixth-round rookie Taylen Green made his preseason debut in the second half of the Browns’ preseason finale against the Patriots, taking over after second-year quarterback Dillon Gabriel gave way.

(Gabriel, for what it’s worth, lit it up in the first half, going 12-for-15 for 186 yards and three touchdowns. That’s a good sign for both Cleveland, which selected him in the third round last year, and for Gabriel, who hadn’t exactly impressed this preseason.)

Pinned deep in his own territory on his first drive, Green nearly scrambled for a first down on third-and-9 but came up a yard short.

Then came the fun. Again in the shadow of his own end zone and behind the sticks, Green nearly pulled a Dan Orlovsky and ran out the back of his end zone, but instead turned a broken play into this …

He was accurate on a pair of short passes before showing off his legs again, first scrambling for 9 yards on third and 5 and later 5 more yards on third and 4. He also converted a quarterback sneak before Davon Booth capped the drive with a 12-yard rushing touchdown.

On his third drive, he added 12 more rushing yards on two carries, but the drive petered out when Green misfired badly on third and 9. The Browns’ defense got a late interception to set up Green for a chance at his first NFL touchdown, but Cleveland’s offense had to settle for a field goal to put a bow on a 37-13 win.

Overall, Green finished 5-for-7 for 27 yards throwing and had a game-high 66 rushing yards on just eight carries.

Why Taylen Green has our attention

Green is an absurd athlete, and not just in an “athletic for a quarterback” way. At the NFL combine back in February, the Arkansas product posted …

• a 43.5-inch vertical jump,
• an 11-foot, 2-inch broad jump and …
• a 4.36-second 40-yard dash.

The vertical jump and the broad jump were both best ever for a quarterback at the combine, and his 40-yard dash was the second-fastest for the position, only behind Michael Vick. All of that athleticism is packed into a 6-foot-6, 230-pound frame that is on par (or better than) the prototype quarterback numbers.

For some non-quarterback context, how about … DK Metcalf?

Green threw for 2,714 yards, 19 touchdowns and 11 interceptions (on an SEC-best 13.7 yards per completion) last year while also picking up 777 yards rushing and eight scores on the ground. But his falling to the sixth round wasn’t exactly an accident. For all the fun highlights and outrageous testing numbers, he completed only 60% of his career passes. He is the definition of a raw prospect, and there’s a long way to go in terms of accuracy and processing in an NFL offense.

In essence, he is the perfect preseason player at this stage of his career: a ton of fun and physical promise on display in a game full of backups.

What’s next for Taylen Green, Dillon Gabriel and Browns?

There have been outstanding athletes at the quarterback position who haven’t panned out. Anthony Richardson Sr. is the most recent notable example; he’s currently battling to be the Colts‘ backup after being the No. 4 overall pick in 2023.

Green doesn’t come with those gigantic expectations, though. As a sixth-round pick, he’s likely looking at a spot as a third or fourth-stringer or on the practice squad. Still, with roster cutdown day on Sunday, the Browns have an interesting decision to make. Will they keep three quarterbacks — generally the most any team keeps — or a basically unheard-of four?

The Browns, it should be noted, have had basically unheard-of quarterback misfortune. They started three different quarterbacks last year, four the year before, and five the year before that. Watson has started just 19 of 68 possible games since arriving in Cleveland and has had season-ending injuries in 2023 and 2024. With that perspective, keeping four doesn’t sound so unreasonable.

Coach Todd Monken said Green “played pretty well in the limited reps he had against the Bills” in joint practice last week, per The Athletic’s Zac Jackson, but also acknowledged there have been so few reps to go around to either Green or Gabriel, given the quarterback competition.

Cutting Gabriel would be a hard pill to swallow. He wasn’t a pick of the current coaching staff like Green was, but the same front office, headed by GM Andrew Berry, is still in place. And while Gabriel hasn’t had the smoothest training camp and preseason, he certainly played well Thursday. Green, on the other hand, is such a rare athlete that the Browns might not be able to sneak him onto the practice squad should the Browns cut him; other teams might be circling.

Cleveland made a big decision about their starting quarterback to start the week. They’ll make a big decision about their backup quarterback(s) to end it.

Sulaiman Khan and Kasim Khan, the sons of former Pakistan captain and Prime Minister Imran Khan, have expressed serious concern over their father’s health and the conditions in which he is being held in prison.Speaking to former England captain and Sky Sports commentator Michael Atherton, the brothers alleged that Imran has been kept in prolonged isolation and has not received adequate medical care. They said they fear for his safety as he approaches three years in prison.Kasim claimed that Imran has suffered a major loss of vision in one eye, estimating that he has lost around 80 per cent of his sight in it. He also said Imran was recently seen wearing an eye patch.According to the brothers, Imran spends more than 23 hours a day alone inside a small cell, with restricted access to books and basic comforts. They also alleged that the cell does not have air conditioning despite the summer heat.“They are not even acting with any kind of strategy any more. It is not very clear what they are doing, just blatantly trying to kill him in there. Keep him in as long as possible, and silence him. The last time he was able to speak to our aunties and anyone else, he said the conditions have severely worsened recently. He has been relating it to other political prisoners who have been killed or who have died in prison. Right now, it is worse than ever, completely isolating him more than 23 hours a day in a cell,” Kasim said.

Sons fear for Imran’s health

Kasim said the priority for the family was now ensuring that Imran receives appropriate medical treatment. He described seeing his father with an eye patch and said the former Pakistan captain appeared visibly stressed.“Right now, it’s really crucial for us that he gets proper treatment. He had an eye patch on for the eye situation, seemed visibly stressed, and that is something that is very hard for us to imagine because he embodies a very calm, assured presence, every time I have ever seen him, including being at gunpoint. A car we were in was robbed, and he was the calmest person there, including the robbers,” he added.The brothers also discussed their attempts to travel to Pakistan and visit their father. They claimed their visas had been blocked on technical grounds and said they were willing to accept the possibility of arrest if it gave them an opportunity to see Imran.Sulaiman recalled the family’s reaction after Imran was taken for a medical examination following a court order.“We were cautiously optimistic. Our fears were confirmed when, instead of being taken to the private hospital, where he was meant to be taken, he was just taken to a government medical facility for a few hours, and then taken straight back to jail,” said Sulaiman.He claimed the examination at the government facility lasted only about an hour and that doctors waiting at Shifa Hospital were not given the opportunity to treat Imran.“In reality, it was an hour check-up by government officials who said, ‘Great, he’s OK’, and then said we will now send him to the independent hospital, Shifa. Instead, they left all the doctors waiting, our auntie waiting, who is a doctor, and sent him straight back to jail,” he added.

Interview sparks PCB controversy

The interview, which was aired during the lunch break of the second Test between England and Pakistan at Lord’s on Thursday, also created an unexpected controversy involving the PCB.The board lodged a formal complaint with Sky Sports over the broadcast. Reports further suggested that the PCB considered asking Pakistan’s players not to return to the field after lunch if the interview was shown.The players eventually returned to the field and the Test continued as scheduled.The interview came shortly after renewed international concern over Imran’s medical treatment. He had been taken to a government hospital for a medical examination following a court order relating to his treatment.

Former captains back call for medical care

The concerns surrounding Imran have also drawn an appeal from a group of former international captains, including Indian cricket greats Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.The former captains wrote to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, urging his government to ensure that Imran receives proper medical treatment and humane conditions while in prison.The appeal was framed as a humanitarian intervention rather than a political statement.Imran remains one of the most prominent figures in Pakistan cricket history. He led the country to its first men’s ODI World Cup title in 1992 before entering politics and eventually becoming Pakistan’s prime minister.

They were separated by 264 days. December brought the outburst that ought to have accelerated Liverpool’s search for a winger. Almost nine months later came the news they had reached an agreement in principle to buy Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain.

Perhaps replacing Mohamed Salah was always going to be hard. Liverpool’s summer in the transfer market has certainly made it look so; the advance warning they had from the moment at Leeds when the Egyptian said he had been “thrown under the bus” and accused the club of breaking their promises to him should have given them a headstart. The subsequent rapprochement only had a temporary feel; it gave Liverpool months to find a successor.

And perhaps they still have not, and not merely because Barcola has yet to complete a medical. He is more of a left winger. But at an initial cost of just over £100m, potentially rising to £120m, he will be the flagship recruit on the flanks. Liverpool have already recruited a winger this summer, the rather cheaper Victor Munoz, whose debut as a substitute at Newcastle came in Salah’s old spot on the right. They also appointed a manager whose gameplan requires wingers, in Andoni Iraola.

The Basque has had to be patient. He hopes Barcola will prove worth the wait. “I definitely would have preferred to have the wingers ready on the first day,” Iraola said. “The same for every position. But I understand that it’s not easy in the market and the wingers that we are trying to sign, they are of a high level. They are wanted by a lot of clubs, and I think it’s very difficult also for the club to close those situations. But as long as we arrive at the right place at the end and we sign the right players, I think it would be worth it even if they haven’t been with us in pre-season.”

Liverpool could not close the situation, to use Iraola’s phrase, with Yan Diomande, who seemed to be their first choice. They submitted an offer worth up to £86m. The Ivorian instead left RB Leipzig for Real Madrid for £115m.

That was an indication of the inflation in prices on the wings; Salah came for just £36.5m, a sum that soon seemed a bargain. Yet the £100m winger is a far more recent development and Chelsea’s decision to pay £117m for Morgan Rogers may not have helped Liverpool’s cause. PSG had quoted them £145m for Barcola, leading to an impasse before they made a breakthrough in negotiations.

Liverpool have been saving their budget for wingers. The challenge was to find the right one. They have also submitted two bids for Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh and shown an interest in Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, both of whom, unlike Barcola, tend to play on the right.

Common denominators between the various targets would seem to include pace and an ability to run at defenders. Iraola outlined his requirements. He explained: “We need wingers who can make the difference, who can be the man who can make the difference in isolation, who can attack the spaces, who can also do the defensive work that we are going to demand from them in terms of pressing or sometimes following the full-backs. And also if they can provide numbers then it’s perfect.”

Maybe no one could match Salah’s numbers, given that he scored 257 goals for Liverpool, but they need someone to chalk up some sizeable figures. Barcola got 11 in Ligue 1 last season, at an average of one every 159 minutes. In all competitions in Paris Saint-Germain’s marathon season of 2024-25, he recorded 21 goals and a further 21 assists. He finished the recent World Cup with three goals.

The model may be a winger Liverpool liked, but did not bid for in January when he moved to Manchester City. Then Antoine Semenyo’s £62.5m cost seemed a lot, but he had scored two goals against them at Anfield last August. He got 11 goals and five assists in the Premier League in 2024-25, 10 goals and a further three assists in the first half of last season. They were for a Bournemouth team managed by Iraola.

That Semenyo has largely operated on the right for City may make Iraola wish Liverpool had been the January buyers. Barcola has, however, been on his new club’s radar for years; he impressed against Liverpool in Dubai in a friendly with Lyon during the 2022 World Cup.

He was displaced from the PSG front three by Desire Doue, but Liverpool can look back a decade, to the arrivals of Sadio Mane and Salah, to find wingers who reached a different level at Anfield. They left a legacy, but also the question of who can live up to the standards they set. Or, indeed, do everything Iraola wants. “It is difficult to find someone who can tick all the boxes, but it is what we are trying to do,” he said. And he must hope Barcola can be Liverpool’s new box ticker.