YES Network.com

Yankee Stadium the site of Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, which if signed would be the biggest mainstream fight of this generation, certainly up there with Marvin Hagler-Thomas Hearns, Hearns-Sugar Ray Leonard or Hagler-Leonard?

(I’ll put Mike Tyson-Michael Spinks in that category in terms of hype only. Tyson destroyed a terrified Spinks in 91 seconds.)

It could happen. The New York Times cited a baseball source expressing the Yankees’ interest in hosting the bout next spring. In September the Yankees held a news conference for Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto at the Stadium to showcase the facility as a multipurpose venue, which will host an annual college bowl game starting in 2010. 


Of course, both Pacquiao (he wants it) and Mayweather (always posturing, flapping his gums and wavering over what everyone else wants) have to formally reach an agreement, and business people must figure out how to fairly (or begrudgingly) split the zillions of dollars in gate and pay-per-view revenue. But when a co-worker and a buddy of mine who attended Pacquiao-Cotto Saturday night in Las Vegas opened up his fight program, Page 2 was a full-color ad of the Stadium’s façade promoting the coming of boxing next year. Furthermore, he happened to meet up with a few of Pacquiao’s entourage by chance and was told any bout between their fighter and “Money” Mayweather will be either in the Bronx or Cowboys Stadium, which can hold at least 100,000 people, for purposes of a larger gate.

This HAS to happen. No excuses. No crying over money. And not a trace of a thought (read Mayweather) about fighting a “tune-up” bout. And it needs to happen in New York City. Yeah, this native New Yorker is a bit biased, but think about the buzz and excitement it’ll create once you match the two best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet with Times Square, Yankee Stadium and this town’s media market.

Boxing isn’t as big as it was in the 1970s, ‘80s and early ‘90s when I followed it closely. Every marquee bout was on free TV, which gave me a chance to watch my favorites Leonard, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini and later Tyson. Even when cable and pay-per-view took over, people paid top dollar to watch Tyson obliterate someone. Even when Tyson’s best days were far behind him and he was in the psycho stage, people still paid to see what off the deep end thing he’d do next. During the mid-1990s I worked as a marketing sales coordinator for a cable guide, direct mail and bill insert publishing company. Every time a Tyson bout was signed for pay-per-view, my clients would call me looking to spend money, telling me that Tyson was fighting and asking how what promotional chips I had available.

That buzz and excitement is back, folks, thanks to Pacquiao’s demolition of Cotto. It had nothing to do with what Cotto did wrong, but everything to do with what Pacquiao did right. Pacquiao’s astonishing speed and power knocked Cotto down twice and bloodied him to the point where he was beyond frustration and had nothing left when the bout was stopped at 55 seconds of the 12th round. Thanks to an array of punches landed with absolute precision, “Pac Man” captured his seventh title in seven weight classes.

Fans and media outlets talked about it the rest of the weekend. Longtime boxing scribes reveled in their loyalty to the sport and how, thanks to Pacquiao, it’s paying off. Frank Lotierzo of TheSweetScience.com went on record to label Pacquiao (50-3-2) “Fighter of the Decade.” It’s a debatable but a wholly legit claim seeing how Pacquiao smashed Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton in his two previous bouts and hasn’t lost in more than four years.

But his legacy will never be complete until he fights Mayweather. The same goes for boxing’s biggest box office draw, the son of former welterweight contender Floyd Mayweather, Sr., and undefeated in 40 pro bouts. Money held Ring Magazine’s top pound-for-pound claim for nearly three years before he retired. That thunder now belongs to Pacquiao and with no challenger left for either to fight except each other, this will be the ultimate proving ground and something the paying public will cancel all Saturday evening plans to be a part of and help set records.

Now it’s time to get it done – and time for New York and Yankee Stadium to create new respective legacies.