?HISTORY? was the word on everyone?s lips at the final pre-show press conference for the first boxing show at the new Yankee Stadium this Saturday. Yuri Foreman and Miguelo Cotto may be headlining the show, the first at any Yankee Stadium for almost 34 years, but the sense of occasion permeated through many of the event?s other key players, from promoter Bob Arum all the way down to the two guys opening the show, Christian Martinez and Jonathan Cuba.
The presser took place in the aptly-named Grand Hall and a look out over the baseball field, where Foreman and Cotto did their TV interviews and 25,000 fans are expected this weekend, conjured up some amazing images of what it will look like when a boxing ring becomes its central focus. It?s simply huge. From the outside, the coliseum-like design of the Stadium owes more than a little to Caesar?s Palace in Las Vegas but both the sheer size of the place, plus the history endowed in its predecessor, have created a mammoth buzz.
For Arum, who staged the last fight at the famous venue?s old location, Muhammad Ali-Ken Norton III in September 1976, this Saturday?s triumphant return has a special resonance.
?It?s very important because the Yankees are the leading team in a baseball-mad country, a baseball-mad city and to have this fight in this stadium is a real statement,? Arum commented. ?It?s the equivalent of having a big boxing match in England at Wembley Stadium.
?As the promoter who did the last fight at the old Yankee Stadium many years ago, it?s a wonderful thing at 78 to be able to do the first of many fights at this Yankee Stadium.?
When I first spotted 23-year-old light-welterweight Jonathan Cuba, he was facing the other way, so his ?Team Cuba? tracksuit made me wonder if perhaps Guillermo Rigondeaux or Erislandy Lara had turned up. I?m not ashamed to say I had to look the New Yorker?s (Manhattan) record up on Boxrec. He is 2-1 (2), his one defeat also coming inside the distance. Normally, a guy with a record like that, even on a big bill like this, would pass relatively unnoticed, but Cuba?s four-round bout with fellow Big Apple inhabitant Christian Martinez, 3-0 (3), has an, yes, historic significance. The pair will take part in the first ever contest at the new Yankee Stadium.
?Incredible is the only word to describe it,? said a beaming Cuba. ?It?s the kind of thing you dream of as a kid. I?m in the first fight so Christian Martinez and I are making history, forget Cotto-Foreman [laughs]. It?s such a big venue, if you look good here, who?s not going to notice you? I wanted to be at the presser to soak it all in ? this is history, everyone here is part of history.?
The two men were awarded plaques for their significant roles but one young boy you almost certainly will not have heard of has been rewarded for, however unlikely it may sound, making this fight happen. Scott Ballan was due to have his Bar Mitzvah ? the Jewish ceremony which takes place when a boy turns 13 and thus ceremonially becomes a man ? at Yankee Stadium on the day of the fight. His family came to a compromise with Arum so the big show could go ahead and Ballan was able to address the press conference and meet all the main participants in the event. Presumably he will also attend the fight giving him what Arum called, ?A Bar Mitzvah he will never forget?.
To sum up, it will be great to see boxing at the linear descendent of the old Yankee Stadium, a venue which hosted, among many others, the first Tonz Zale-Rocky Graziano fight, Sugar Ray Robinson against Joey Maxim and Carmen Basilio and of course the truly ?historic? rematch between Joe Louis (who fought at the Stadium 12 times) and Max Scmeling in 1938 which transcended the sport. Cotto-Foreman and their peers may not manage that but perhaps they can add a fitting new chapter to the outstanding legacy of their forebears.
