Bianco Vilano accomplished the scarce Riverina showcase double, besting a talented group in the Listed $200,000 Wagga Wagga Gold Cup (2000m) at Wagga Wagga held on Friday.

Ron Stubbs, a trainer held in high regard, prepared Bianco Vilano, marking him as merely the fourth to secure the Albury Cup–Wagga Wagga Gold Cup pairing.

Two years ago Fawkner Park did it, and before that only Abstraction in 1989 and Dan Patch in 1945 had managed the double.

Bianco Vilano at $12, with Jason Lyon aboard after Tyler Schiller’s injury ruled him out, won by slightly more than one length over Villasaurus ($21), and last season’s winner Flying Bandit ($12) filled third spot closely.

Over his lengthy, trophy-filled tenure, Stubbs had taken most Riverina highlights except the Wagga Wagga Gold Cup, which now belongs to him.

“This is a huge thrill,” Stubbs told Sky Thoroughbred Central’s Graeme White.

“To be able to win both of them (Albury Cup, Wagga Wagga Gold Cup) is amazing. He has gone to another level.

“It was unfortunate Tyler could not be here today but I’m pleased for Jason. He does a lot of work for our stable, he is our stable jockey.”

Lyon, recognising Schiller after the event, commented that it “didn’t go to plan early” for Bianco Vilano.

“But when we came out on the corner, I was pretty confident,” Lyon said.

“We hit the front a bit early but he was just too good. He is very versatile as he’s won from 1175m and now twice at 2000m.”

The Wagga Wagga Gold Cup score by Bianco Vilano opens the door to the $3 million Big Dance (1600m) on Melbourne Cup Day at Royal Randwick, first Tuesday of November.

During the prominent Wagga Wagga program, John Sargent claimed a pair of feature wins, including the $200,000 Inglis 2yo Challenge (1200m) with striking first-up runner Global Goal.

This Pinatubo two-year-old filly, from Fastnet Rock mare Tides who is kin to Redoute’s Choice, Manhattan Rain and Shoals, was bought for $250,000 at the previous Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.

Global Goal, with Dylan Gibbons riding, won by just over a length from Gary Portelli’s debut-making Friendly Fire, who ran with promise.

Sargent further featured with the developing three-year-old Cosmic Avenger, victor of the $80,000 MTC Guineas (1600m) via a swift finish.

Ridden by Tommy Berry, Cosmic Avenger trailed early, raced outwards on the turn, but accelerated in the run home to overhaul Godolphin’s Coulter comfortably.

From Wodonga, David O’Prey readied Rosie’s Prophecy under Brendan Ward for an unexpected score in the $75,000 Queen of the South (1400m).

Hall of Fame conditioner Gai Waterhouse attended as finely bred Eton crushed rivals in the Super Maiden (1200m) by nearly four lengths on return.

Bred from champion I Am Invincible and Waterhouse’s dual Group 1 mare English, Eton was back after 18 months out with injury for start number three, and the gelding’s blowout win points to a bright track career.

Visit betting sites to find the best racing betting markets for the Wagga Wagga Gold Cup.

LeBron James has played 23 NBA seasons. His legacy, no matter how you feel about it, is mostly written. Sure, he could do a bit more accumulating. He’s set pretty much every record he’s going to set, but he could always widen the gap between himself and No. 2. A fifth championship would be nice, but let’s not kid ourselves, winning one as part of an ensemble in his 40s doesn’t carry the same weight that his apex titles as the best player in the world did. That stuff is mostly window dressing, though.

At some point in or around James’ peak, you either decided you believed he was better than Michael Jordan, or you didn’t. Nothing that happens in his 40s is going to change your mind, nor should it. He’s not himself anymore, and though he maintained some proximity to his peak far longer than Jordan did, debating the relative merits of 41-year-old LeBron against Wizards-era Jordan just isn’t especially interesting. There’s no firm consensus on peak Jordan vs. peak James, but there’s no new information coming on that front. 

The first-round series we just watched — James’ Los Angeles Lakers taking down the Houston Rockets in six games — says little about that debate. But it certainly says something. The Lakers were a +425 underdog to the Rockets entering this series, technically making it the biggest upset of James’ career. Sure, those odds didn’t account for Kevin Durant’s eventual health status, but Houston had Durant for Game 2 and still lost. 

For the Lakers, Luka Dončić missed the entire series and Austin Reaves returned only for Games 5 and 6. The Lakers averaged around 116 points per game in the regular season. Those two, on average, scored just under 57 and assisted on another 34. There’s some overlap with the two assisting one another, of course, but there are also invisible points they generate through advantage creation. How many Lakers points this season started with Dončić drawing two on the ball before several passes turned into an open layup? 

You can’t fully quantify what the Lakers were without in this series. It was the entire offensive identity they spent the year building, including the reduced role James took on as the season progressed. A 41-year-old James and coach JJ Redick reinvented the team effectively enough over the course of three weeks that they were able to beat the Rockets, a 52-win opponent, in six games. It was a diminished 52-win opponent, of course, but therein lies the noteworthy contrast.

Lakers overcame injuries while Rockets failed to adjust

Houston lost Fred VanVleet before the season. They never quite figured out how to play without him. Then they lost Steven Adams. They were significantly worse without him as well. The Rockets had every available resource at their disposal to undergo the sort of reinvention that the Lakers did. The Lakers traded their only available second-round pick at the deadline for Luke Kennard. The Rockets sat on a mountain of draft capital. Houston has a roster full of young, highly drafted players eager for bigger roles. The Lakers, aside from James, were comprised mostly of players cast off by other teams. Marcus Smart and Deandre Ayton were bought out by their last teams. The Lakers are Kennard’s fifth team. Bronny James was supposedly a nepo draft pick. 

The Rockets even had time. They’ve known about VanVleet’s injury since September and Adams’ since January. The Lakers lost Dončić and Reaves on April 2. They did in weeks what Houston couldn’t in months.

LeBron James promised the Lakers everything, then gave them every last ounce

Sam Quinn

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There are plenty of Lakers figures — Redick especially — who deserve plaudits for that, and there are even more Rockets figures who deserve blame. But boil this down, and it was possible because the Lakers had James, the greatest problem solver in the history of basketball, on their team. And even if James is not who he once was physically, he’s the sort of player and thinker capable of taking disparate parts and turning them into a cohesive team. He’s been doing this for decades. 

How different is this, really, from leading the 2007 or 2018 Cavaliers to the NBA Finals? The stakes are lower, but the principle applies. No matter who you have on your roster, James is going to maximize them.

There are exceptions, of course. The 2011 Finals stand out as the most notable, and it’s the biggest stain on an otherwise spotless resume. The 2022 Russell Westbrook debacle, a combination of injuries, poor roster construction and all manner of locker room issues, stands out as well. There are certainly individual players who had to take smaller roles besides him — Chris Bosh and Kevin Love being the obvious examples.

But whatever full team you give James, he’s going to take it to its absolute ceiling. He knows how to make the most of the rosters he has, even if individual components of those rosters aren’t always happy with where he thinks they fit into it. Since that 2011 Finals loss, he’s made the Finals eight more times. He lost a few more years due to injury, and Nikola Jokić proved an insurmountable foe for a stretch, but he didn’t lose a series in which his team was favored again until 2025 — when he was 40 and his roster was so thin that his coach played an entire second half using only five players. 

Merely having James is no longer an automatic trip to the Finals, but it’s an assurance that your team will be as good as it can feasibly be. And in this series, that was better than the Rockets.

Differences between LeBron, Kevin Durant on full display

That’s part of what made the Rockets such an interesting foil for a series like this. James really only has two remote historical peers left in the NBA, Stephen Curry and Durant, and since the latter left the former, his teams have pretty consistently underachieved. Not all of that is his fault. He didn’t cause the pandemic that split up the Nets, of course. But he didn’t hold that team together, either. He couldn’t lift up a Suns team with two other star-level talents. They lacked role players, but the sort of talent downgrade Phoenix made swapping him out for Dillon Brooks, Jalen Green and a pick shouldn’t lead to an eight-win improvement.

The Rockets didn’t have Durant for five of the six games in this series. They did have him for 78 of the 82 regular-season games. What does it say about his presence that none of Houston’s highly-touted young players grew in the ways we hoped they would playing beside him? How much responsibility does he bear for the lack of resiliency the Rockets showed early in this series? Certainly not all of it. Probably some of it. Stars, whether they want to be or not, are culturally load-bearing.

The Lakers won a series they should have lost because they had James on their team, and he managed to unlock the absolute best from players like Kennard, Smart and Rui Hachimura. The Rockets lost in the first round of a season that started with championship expectations primarily because of injuries, but also, to some extent, because the Hall of Famer they imported to create those championship expectations wasn’t able to create or sustain a culture that empowered his young teammates in the same way.

There are basketball reasons for that (James is a legendary playmaker and Durant, almost two decades in, still struggles with double-teams) and there are intangible ones (Durant not being on the bench for Game 3, even to receive treatment, hardly suggested an especially close team, and we now know the Durant burner scandal was addressed and ultimately tabled in the locker room), but the end result is the same. The difference between the two is that Durant has historically been a solo artist, while James has built a career making his teams the absolute best they could be.

That’s not going to convince you to rank James ahead of Jordan if you weren’t already there. It’s just a nice encapsulation of what his presence has meant for the past 23 years. James’ undermanned team faced the undermanned team of one of his greatest rivals, and James won the matchup handily. 

It may not change his legacy, but it epitomizes what that legacy is all about.

That is second again only to Shaw, but given the Jamaica striker has scored more than double the number of goals, she probably has more credit in the bank.

It could be why Blackstenius is sometimes reduced to a bit-part role at Emirates Stadium – or perhaps it is the standard of competition.

After all, she is up against one of the best strikers in the world in Russo, England heroes Chloe Kelly and Beth Mead, £1m Canada winger Olivia Smith and Arsenal stalwart Caitlin Foord for a starting spot.

Not that the former Linkoping, Montpellier and BK Hacken forward is complaining.

She added: “We have so much quality in this team and we are a really good group that wants to support each other. I feel safe in this group and I know my team-mates have my back.

“This club feels a lot like home.”

It has also been the home of the Champions League trophy for the past year. If they avoid defeat against eight-time winners Lyon, Arsenal will have the chance of notable back-to-back titles.

MMA Fighting has Naoya Inoue vs. Junto Nakatani live round-by-round updates for one of the most anticipated boxing fights of the year at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, on Saturday night.

The main event is expected to begin around 8 a.m. ET on DAZN pay-per-view. Check out our Inoue vs. Nakatani results page to find out what happened on the undercard.

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Naoya Inoue (32-0, 27 knockouts) has become a global star with his fighting style and knockout power. After fighting four times last year, Inoue enters the ring for the first time this year Saturday.

Junto Nakatani (32-0, 24 knockouts) also has yet to taste defeat in his career. He fought three times last year and is also competing for the first time in 2026.

Get the Inoue vs. Nakatani round-by-round live blog below:

Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3:

Round 4:

Round 5:

Round 6:

Round 7:

Round 8:

Round 9:

Round 10:

Round 11:

Round 12:

Official result:

This month, Oleksandr Usyk faces Rico Verhoeven at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

Usyk currently holds three of the four major heavyweight world titles, and has been permitted by the WBC to defend its belt against Verhoeven, despite the challenger having just one professional boxing bout to his name alongside a decorated kickboxing career

Though the IBF and WBA are yet to clarify their stance on the fight, the Ring Magazine belt has now also been confirmed to be on the line, according a recent social media post.

May is STACKED with MASSIVE title fights and headliners 🔥🍿

Which fight are you most looking forward to? 👀

Presented by @JEDCalendarpic.twitter.com/SrRmZVrw6N

— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) May 1, 2026

Usyk became the Ring’s heavyweight champion back in 2022 when Tyson Fury relinquished the title and it was put on the line for the his first clash with Anthony Joshua. He has since retained it against ‘AJ’ in their rematch, as well as against Daniel Dubois and Tyson Fury twice.

Previous holders of the belt include Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis. Though few in the sport give unranked Verhoeven much of a chance in the May 23 main event of The Ring Magazine show, he has nonetheless put himself in unlikely contention to join that list of legends.

Usyk will hope that the IBF and WBA follow suit or, at least, allow him to compete in the fight without stripping him. Neither belt was present at the event’s initial press conference.

If he can remain unified champion, the 39-year-old said he will return to the more traditional path after Verhoeven and target the winner of Fabio Wardley vs Daniel Dubois, driven by the chance to become a three-time undisputed heavyweight champion after also holding all four belts at cruiserweight.

The Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes kicked off the May 1 edition of Friday Night SmackDown with his promo. The American Nightmare spoke about what’s next for him as the titleholder and announced that he has been medically cleared to compete. His promo was cut short by Ricky Saints, who laid a challenge for The Prodigal Son.

Rhodes, a fighting champion, accepted the challenge to face Saints that night, and a non-title match was booked between the real-life friends.

Later, the same night, The American Nightmare and Ricky locked horns in a singles match which was techicanal battle and the chesmity between Saints and Rhodes on a different level, the ending of the match was also creative, when Cody managed to turn former NXT Champion’s Razor’s Edge move into his own Cross Rhodes and sealed a clean win over the newest member of blue brand, welcoming him in the big league.

However, that wasn’t the shock: the Prodigal Son was celebrating his big win over Ricky when Gunther jumped the American Nightmare from behind, putting him into his signature Sleeper Choke, making the Champion unconscious in the middle of the ring. Then, The Ring General locked his eyes on the Undisputed WWE Championship and showed it to the crowd, showing his true urge to capture the strap.

In this listicle, we will explore three reasons why Gunther attacked Cody and why he is next in line for the Undisputed Championship.

#4. Randy Orton may be unfit

The Orton-Rhodes saga is nowhere to end, as their main-event match at WrestleMania Saturday ended with a cliffhanger, where, despite losing clean to the Prodigal Son, The Apex Predator snapped and took his protege out with a Punt Kick and also snapped at Pat McAfee, clearly hinting that he is not with Cody.

However, rumors circulated that Orton was injured heading into the match, which also contributed to his failure to win the title. Now, WWE putting Gunther in the Undisputed WWE Championship mix may have subtly confirmed that the rumors may be true. There is a massive chance that The Apex Predator is unfit, as he hasn’t been on television since the Showcase of the Immortals, and now the Ring General has officially replaced him in the feud with Rhodes for now, at least.

#3. To eliminate the predictability from the WWE product

Since Triple H and his creative regime have taken over WWE’s creatives, in their efforts to make the product even more engaging, they also always try to pull off unexpected moves; the Orton and Rhodes saga being directly kicked off again post-Mania was predictable.

Hence, to eliminate predictability, The Game and team crafted a new angle, pitting Gunther against The Prodigal Son, possibly saving Orton vs. Rhodes for a bigger maybe at SummerSlam 2026.

#2. Gunther needed something major

The Ring General is on a massive run and has gained major momentum by retiring three legends, Goldberg, John Cena, and AJ Styles, in a row over the course of months. At WrestleMania 42, he beat Seth Rollins after Bron Breakker intervened and punished The Visionary.

Therefore, he indeed needed something bigger, and if by any chance Orton is out, there could be no better name than The Career Killer to replace him, as he needs a big storyline to justify his major push.

That being said, it will be interesting to see where Gunther-Cody goes next in the coming weeks.

#1. Title defense at WWE Backlash

The first PLE after WrestleMania, the Stamford-based promotion is set to host is Backlash Tampa, and the World Heavyweight Champion, Roman Reigns, has already booked to defend his strap against his cousin, Jacob Fatu.

The company may also need to defend its title at the Premium Live Event, and with Randy’s in-ring status probably hanging in doubt, WWE may have replaced him with Gunther to place him on the card.