Cousins offers to foot bill for police victim’s funeral
Former Sacramento Kings star Demarcus Cousins offered to pay for the funeral of the 22-year-old unarmed man shot and killed Sunday by city police in his grandmother’s backyard.
Cousins reportedly has made similar efforts on several occasions before in Sacramento, where he played from 2010 until last season, when he was traded to New Orleans.
Celtics: All-star point guard Kyrie Irving, who has missed four games since March 11, will have a “minimally invasive” surgery Saturday to alleviate pain in his left knee, and his return has no timetable, the team said. between Top Rank’s Bob Arum and Golden Boy Promotions’ Oscar De La Hoya. They’ve had many squabbles, and now both belong to different TV networks.
“They said that was impossible,” Arum said of coming to an agreement.
Yup, wasn’t going to happen. Better to not get hurt. Look forward to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-gennady Golovkin II.
But then someone had the grand idea of moving the highly desired bout an hour earlier. Those extra 60 minutes made the impossible possible. A miracle in the boxing world.
Lomachenko (10-1, eight knockouts) will move up to lightweight and challenge long-reigning WBA champion Linares (44-3, 27 KOS) on an Espn-televised main event May 12 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Linares, a Las Vegas resident, is a plus 550 underdog against Lomachenko at William Hill sports books.
The bout will air at 5 p.m. and lead into Golden Boy Promotions’ HBO card at 7 featuring the Alvarez-golovkin replay of their May 5 pay-per-view match and the junior middleweight title fight between Sadam Ali and Liam Smith.
“It ended up being a win-win for everybody,” said Arum, who promotes Lomachenko. “We got the fight on the date we wanted. Not only is there no interference with HBO’S telecast, but it’s the greatest lead-in they could have.”
Arum budging over the earlier time slot and De La Hoya signing off on Linares fighting on a different network helped make the fight come to fruition.
But the biggest reason was Lomachenko, 30, and Linares, 32, demanding this fight happen. Here we had two champions who wanted to be challenged. No mandatory bouts. No tuneups. No ducking.
Too often in boxing, fighters succumb to their promoters’ plans and promises.
Arum was ready to walk away from the Linares negotiations and dangled a potential spring bout with Manny Pacquiao for Lomachenko. The junior lightweight titlist declined to face the 39-year-old Filipino senator and demanded for Linares, who is in his prime and arguably the best 135-pound fighter.