Top Rank promoter Bob Arum comes to Yankee Stadium to announce Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto fight

A day after Derek Jeter tied Lou Gehrig as the Yanks' all-time hits leader at Yankee Stadium, boxing promoter Bob Arum stood on the same field hoping to add his own stamp on the Bombers' new digs in the Bronx.

Arum of Top Rank Boxing held a press conference along the first base line in front of the Yankees dugout to announce the 12-round welterweight match between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Nov. 14. It was the first stop on a five-city promotional tour to help sell the match, which will be broadcast on HBO Pay-Per-View.

You might ask why Arum would come to Yankee Stadium to announce a Las Vegas fight. He is hoping to land Cotto or Pacquiao at the Stadium in the future.

Arum put the last fight at the old Yankee Stadium - a heavyweight title match between Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton on Sept. 28, 1976.

"I'd love to be the first one to hold a major boxing show at the new Yankee Stadium," said Arum.

Yankees COO Lonn Trost joined Arum at the press conference and pointed to the Floyd Mayweather, Jr.-Juan Manuel Marquez fight on Sept. 19.

"There will be a winner between Mayweather and Marquez and there will be a winner between Cotto and Pacquiao," he said. "And those winners will fight each other. Where better than Yankee Stadium to have that fight?"

The Yankees have been looking for different events to hold at the new stadium. So far they have booked some college football games. But boxing would put the new Yankee Stadium in touch with the rich sporting history of the old place. However, don't expect anything like the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fight in 1938 that drew 70,000 at the new place anytime soon.

The environment for boxing is a lot different today than it was even back in 1976 for Ali-Norton. There are no heavyweight champions with the cache of Ali.

In recent times, big fights have ended up in Las Vegas because casinos offered promoters huge site fees, not to mention free rooms and meals, to host fights. With teams building new stadiums and needing entertainment to keep the places filled when there are no games, they have turned to boxing.

About 500 showed up for the press conference at the Stadium Thursday. Arum said he was pleased with the turnout. He thinks it is a good indicator of the excitement that a real fight between top caliber boxers would bring to Yankee Stadium.

While Cotto-Pacquiao is the premier boxing match of 2009 and is a mega event for Las Vegas, it certainly isn't the kind of broad appeal fight that will bring 40,000 people to Yankee Stadium.

Arum has been trying to build Pacquiao into a superstar in the mold of Oscar De La Hoya. It helped that Pacquiao successfully fought his way through three weight classes (130, 135 and 147 pounds) in eight months last year, stopped De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton on KOs, and currently is No.1 on the mythical Pound-for-Pound list.

As for Mayweather, the former Pound-for-Pound king, he ends a nearly two-year long retirement to fight Marquez in a week. And it looks like he is on a collision course with Pacquiao or Cotto.

Mayweather-Pacquiao is the only fight that will hold the interest of the general fan worth putting in Yankee Stadium. But a fight of that magnitude will generate a lot of competitive bids from Las Vegas and maybe even Madison Square Garden.

Sounds like a win-win for Arum.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2009/09/11/2009-09-11_top_rank_promoter_bob_arum_cant_lose_in_vegas_or_bronx.html