Alycia Baumgardner, Ben Whittaker and a busy boxing weekend: 5 things to watch

After back-to-back heavyweight weekends, boxing is back to its bread-and-butter schedule over the next few days as we put talk of Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury negotiations on ice. Bah, who are we kidding?

Despite being five or six years past its prime sell-by date, the long-awaited “Battle of Britain” is once again front and center of the boxing news agenda and it’s proving impossible to go an hour, let alone a day, without rumblings of this potential heavyweight bout topping the headlines. But as Joshua and his promoter, Eddie Hearn, explained last weekend , until both parties have signed on the dotted line, it’s pointless getting too excited about this clash of former heavyweight world champions . If only someone would tell the trigger-happy Turki Alalshikh this.

So, let’s take a look at some of the confirmed boxing action over the weekend — leaving a little room for some speculation. 1. Baumgardner’s latest push to become the “face” of women’s boxing Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano have made no secret of their desires for retirement in the near future, leaving the door open for a new queen of the ring to rival the likes of Claressa Shields in becoming the “face” of women’s boxing.

Alycia Baumgardner ticks a lot of boxes to be a contender for that crown. The 31-year-old returns to the ring Friday night to defend her unified WBO, IBF and WBA super featherweight titles against South Korea’s Bo Mi Re Shin inside the Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, and a convincing win on this MVPW 02 card will catapult the American’s name into the headlines once again. Baumgardner is 17-1 (7 KOs) looks the part, talks the talk, and has, so far, walked the walk in the ring.