NEW YORK --- Bob Arum was back in New York with Miguel Cotto – and it wasn’t even Puerto Rican Day. “I have a dream,” said Arum, “that a few years from now Miguel Cotto will be invited to the White House. And the President will be so impressed that she will give him an award…”
Arum and Cotto, Shane Mosley and Richard Schaefer, and their traveling parties were in the Big Apple Thursday for the middle stop of a three-city promotional tour to kick off the hype for the Nov. 10 “Fast & Furious” bout between Cotto and Mosley at Madison Square Garden.
The New York stop was sandwiched in between stops in San Juan (Wednesday) and Los Angles (next Monday), although one almost wonders why they even bothered. As MSG vice president Joel Fisher noted on Thursday, “I don’t know how much promotion you need. This fight will sell itself.”
“It will be a sellout,” Arum flatly predicted. “I’ve never experienced advance interest for a fight like this one. We already have orders for 6,000 tickets – and they don’t even go on sale until noon (Thursday).”
The matchup between the undefeated Cotto, whose astonishing capacity for ticket-selling is nearly as impressive as his ring credentials, and Mosley, a four-time world champion and future Hall of Famer, is an intriguing and competitive one.
“It’s the most significant test for Miguel Cotto, who’s fighting a legend, and it’s the biggest challenge for Mosley since (his 2003 fight against) Oscar De La Hoya,” said HBO PPV boss Mark Taffett, whose network will show Fast & Furious, with a suggested retail price of $49.95.
(“Pay your cable bill early, everybody. We don’t want nobody getting shut off,” advised Golden Boy VP Bernard Hopkins.)
Although specifics of the undercard have not been announced, the Nov. 10 show will also include WBC interim lightweight champion Joel Casamayor, a likely bout between Mexican bantamweights Jorge Arce and Martin Castillo, and an appearance by 20 year-old California welterweight Victor Ortiz, whose only loss came two years ago when he was disqualified for knocking out opponent Corey Alarcon in the first round with what was ruled an “illegal punch.”
There were a dozen people seated at the dais for Thursday’s rite at the Garden Theatre, and Hopkins (who was introduced by Schaefer as the “undisputed light-heavyweight champion,” even though he’s not even a disputed one), spoke longer than the other 11 put together.
Hopkins called Cotto the successor to his onetime victim Felix Trinidad as the standard-bearer for Puerto Rican fight fans, and compared his own fight against Trinidad with his expectations for this one.
“When Trinidad fell by the wayside, another fighter was waiting to take his place – Cotto,” said B-Hop. “Like when I fought Trinidad, this will be a biased crowd – at first. Any other nationality would be outnumbered 5 to 1 when Cotto fights here. But even though they’ll be shouting his name from the beginning, they’ll understand when they see greatness before their eyes, and before it’s over they’ll be chanting Shane’s name, too.”
“I’ve got nothing against Puerto Ricans or any other nationality,” said Mosley. “I went down to Puerto Rico to spar with Oscar (before May’s Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight) and I enjoyed It there. But I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.”
“It’s a big challenge for both fighters,” agreed Cotto’s uncle and trainer, Evangelista Cotto. “Shane Mosley has proved himself time and time again.”
Taffett noted that the boxing slate for the last quarter of 2007 includes a “Fab Five” of highly compelling fights – Taylor-Pavlik, Calzaghe-Kessler, Pacquiao-Barrera, Mayweather-Hatton, and Cotto-Mosley. Of course, besides being Fab, what those five bouts also have in common is that they’re all being televised by HBO.
“But I’m involved in promoting three of those cards,” noted Arum, “and this is the third press conference where the participants have conducted themselves like perfect gentlemen. In this day and age of boxing, that’s refreshing.”
It is interesting that we’ve arrived at the point that civilized behavior is so rare at these gatherings that it is noteworthy and deserving of a headline. As in:
BOXERS HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE, DON’T ACT LIKE ASSHOLES…
M
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