NEW YORK – “Let’s see, we have 235 tickets left in the $500 seats, 65 in the $300 seats,” Bob Arum ticked off the numbers. “The $100 and $200 seats are all gone. And we have 714 seats left in the balcony.”
That was at noontime on Wednesday. With three full days remaining before fight night, that Saturday night’s Miguel Cotto-Zab Judah will be a sellout was already a foregone conclusion. Exactly where this will place it among the pantheon of Madison Square Garden’s all-time gates apparently remains in the eye of the beholder.
“It will be the first real sellout – the first wall-to-wall sellout -- since Roberto Duran-Davey Moore in 1983,” said Arum, who also promoted that bout.
The 2001 Bernard Hopkins-Felix Trinidad fight, promoted by Don King, was also announced as a sellout, but the attendance that night was 17,406.
Even Arum’s optimistic predictions of a crowd of “19,000-plus” would fall short of at least three prior Garden fight nights – Ali-Frazier II (20,748), Ali-Frazier I (20,455) and Duran-Moore (20,061).
The discrepancy, according to Arum, is the result of advanced technology. The need for extra camera equipment for HBO’s pay-per-view telecast had resulted in the removal of some seats. It is reasonable to assume that the DJ-and-light show the promoter is bringing in for the festivities will also displace what in another era might have been paying customers.
There is a reason that every available seat has been snapped up, or will have been by Saturday. Both combatants enjoy passionate New York constituencies. This will be the third consecutive year that the undefeated (29-0) Cotto has performed in the Garden on the eve of New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade, but the first time before a sellout crowd. In other words, Arum can thank Zab Judah’s followers for the extra 6,000 or so tickets sold for this one.
“It’s been happening gradually, so it doesn’t surprise me,” said Arum of the smash hit he has on his hands. “This is what we’ve been working toward for (Cotto’s) whole career, and now it’s coming to fruition.”
The likely demographics (roughly a 2-1 split among Cotto and Judah backers) and the devotion of the two boxers’ supporters, there could be the whiff of danger in the air as well, and MSG executives will trot out extra security Saturday night.
It isn’t often that we have occasion to credit Zab Judah with saying something sensible, but the challenger should be applauded for his attempt to defuse that potential situation at Wednesday’s press conference.
“People shouldn’t be trying to turn this into a race thing,” said Zab, the 34-4 former champion. “This is boxing. I don’t want it getting into something it shouldn’t be, some kind of black-vs.-Spanish thing. I’ve got plenty of Latino friends, and lots of Puerto Rican fans. After Saturday night everyone goes back to where they were.
“The only thing different,” he could not resist adding, “is that there’ll be a new champion, that’s all.”
There was in fact a minimum of trash-talking between the main event combatants Wednesday at the Garden Theatre. The only woofing seemed to take place between the boxers’ relatives.
After Yoel Judah, Zab’s father and trainer, declined to use a microphone for his brief but blustery address, Evangelista Cotto, Miguel’s uncle and trainer, took his turn.
“Unfortunately, I do have to use a microphone, because I don’t have a big mouth like he does,” said Uncle Angie.
To which Zab had a rejoinder: “Anytime you want to do something about it, he’s in good shape.”
HBO pay-per-view is charging $49.95 for Saturday night’s card, which in addition to the main event will include three other bouts – junior lightweight contender Humberto Soto vs. Manny Pacquiao’s brother Bobby, junior middleweights Yuri Foreman and Anthony Thompson, and a welterweight bout between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Grover Wiley, a Nebraska journeyman whose claim to fame is that he is the man who retired Julio Jr.’s illustrious father, whom he stopped in a 2005 bout that proved to be Julio Sr.’s last.
Arum’s introduction of the Soto (41-5-2) vs. Pacquiao (27-12-3) fight was interesting if only because it forced the promoter to acknowledge the presence of Bobby’s trainer Freddie Roach, with whom the promoter had not spoken in several months before Wednesday. (Arum blames Roach for having engineered Manny’s attempted leap to Golden Boy Promotions.)
The bout between Foreman, an undefeated (22-0) but largely untested Belarus native who has been boxing out of New York for several years, and Thompson (23-1) is noteworthy in that it apparently represents a matchup of two practicing Jews. The dreadlocked Thompson, who describes himself as a “Hebrew Israelite,” noted that he was a member of “the same tribe as Zab,” which would apparently make him a member of Foreman’s extended tribe as well.
Wiley, who will bring a 30-9-1 record to Saturday’s proceedings, may have unnecessarily aroused his opponent when he boasted “I was the last man to beat Julio Cesar Chavez, and after Saturday night I’ll be the first to beat his son.”
“I just want him to know he’s not fighting an old man this time,” replied Junior (31-0). “If I do
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