Jeff Horn is about to walk in the land of giants. A destination where legends are made and myths are exploded. If Horn wants to make a statement in America, he could hardly have found a more perfect setting.
Las Vegas is the epicentre of boxing, has been for the best part of 40 years. The sport?s latest and greatest have left an indelible impression on sin city ? boxing?s rise, fall and rise again intertwined with the bright lights and sordid culture of gambling.
Some have come and stayed. After falling on hard times, former heavyweight champion Joe Louis worked at Caesar?s Palace as a greeter until he died from a heart attack at the age of 66.
Floyd Mayweather lives here, a taxi driver telling The Weekend Australian last year that she occasionally bumps into the richest athlete on the planet while doing her grocery shopping.
Mike Tyson is another resident, his affinity for Vegas playing a significant part in the former heavyweight champion securing a cameo role in movie, The Hangover.
Tyson tells the story in his book of going to one of his favourite nightclubs, where he would use his fame and notoriety to pick up enough money to pay for his drug addiction.
He noticed a group of people in the VIP section and one of them turned out to be comedy actor Zach Galifianakis. ?Come sit with us and have a drink,? Galifianakis said. A couple of weeks later, Tyson was on the set of The Hangover.
Others have been content to leave their mark and move on.
Muhammad Ali fought seven times in Vegas, among those bouts a vindictive win over Floyd Patterson and a devastating loss to Larry Holmes, when an ageing Ali seemingly deteriorated before the eyes of thousands in attendance and millions around the globe.
When the fight was stopped after the 10th round, Ali had landed 42 punches. Holmes had replied with 340. As Ali sat beaten and battered on his stool, Holmes wandered over with tears in his eyes and told him that he loved him.
Sugar Ray Leonard became the dominant force when Ali departed the scene, his fight with Thomas Hearns in Las Vegas a night that will live long in the city?s memory.
Leonard was labouring until his cornerman ? the legendary Angelo Dundee ? told him he was blowing it. Leonard came out in the 13th round and dropped Hearns twice on the way to victory.
Now it is Horn?s turn to take centre stage as he looks to make inroads in America. He arrives as a marked underdog but boxing is littered with fairytales. Horn knows that only too well, having shocked the world with his win over Manny Pacquiao last year.
New York and Madison Square Garden may remain the spiritual home of boxing in America, but if you make it here, you can make it anywhere.
?Vegas is the Mecca of boxing,? Horn said yesterday.
?This is one of the biggest places you can fight at in the world. I feel comfortable and I am ready to put on a show on Saturday night.?
Horn?s trainer Glenn Rushton added: ?We love being here, it is the home of boxing and there have been so many great fights in this same auditorium.
?While we appreciate all that, take it on board and absorb it ? when it comes down to the night all of that disappears into the background as you focus on that square ring and the opponent in front of you.
?This is just all window dressing. The world is a square ring. You can put that square ring in the middle of a desert, you can put that square ring on the moon if you like. I don?t care where you put that square ring because all of that all goes kaboom and out of Jeff?s mindset when the bell goes. When the bell goes ringing, all we have is that square ring.
?No matter where that ring is, we will be in the zone.?
Horn may be the foreigner but Crawford has fought little in Vegas of late. His 2016 fight against Viktor Postol was his only fight in the city in the past five years.
Crawford prefers to fight out of his native Omaha, helping explain why he doesn?t have the profile of some fighters with lesser records.
It?s a baffling decision that has probably cost Crawford millions. His home town almost cost him his life as well when ? only four fights into his professional career ? he won some money playing a game of dice on a street corner.
Crawford took his money, sat in his car and counted his cash. Then he heard a pow. A bullet went through the rear window of Crawford?s car and grazed his head. Crawford drove himself to hospital and survived thanks to the smallest of margins ? millimetres. It was a lucky escape but the Horn camp will tell anyone who listens that the American?s luck has run out.
Crawford may be a prohibitive favourite but so was Pacquiao. He may be unbeaten but so is Horn. He may be on home soil but Horn has been waiting his whole boxing career to fight in Las Vegas.
That day has now arrived.
?We have been on some big stages,? Horn?s promoter Dean Lonergan said.
?When we were developing (New Zealand heavyweight) Joseph Parker we went on the undercard of Wladimir Klitschko. That was pretty cool at the time.
?We have just come away from Anthony Joshua versus Joseph Parker in front of 80,000 people in England.
?Now we?re here with Jeff Horn. This is the whole reason you do this. The 51,000 at Suncorp (for the Pacquiao fight) was a goal Glenn stated at the start (of their partnership) and we managed to achieve that.
?The goal was to get to New York, get to Las Vegas. And here we are. This is boxing baby, this is the entertainment capital of the world. Very, very big things wait at the back end of this when Jeff Horn?s hand is raised after the fight.?
