The comeback has been dramatic. Not the comeback of any particular boxer, but the comeback of the Garden as a boxing venue.
No one would be brash enough to say that the Garden is once again the Mecca of Boxing, but it once again has become a major player in the field that recently only belonged to the Las Vegas casinos.
The Oscar De La Hoya-Derrell Coley fight last night was the Garden’s second major fight in a year, and the April 29 Lennox Lewis-Michael Grant heavyweight championship bout will give the Garden its third top-draw fight in a little over a year.
This has been part of a long process to bring the fight game back to the Garden and to such new venues as Radio City Music Hall.
“I wouldn’t say it really started necessarily last year,” Kevin Wynne, the Garden’s vice president of sports properties, said earlier this week. “Over the last couple of years we had a lot of big names come through our building.”
Getting fans to come through, of course, is the key. A crowd of about 14,000 was expected for last night’s fight.
“That’s not bad considering the fight’s on HBO,” said promoter Bob Arum.
The Evander Holyfield-Lewis fight last year put the Garden back in the big-fight mix. Even though the decision was controversial, the Garden came away a big winner.
“That fight was a tremendous success for us,” Wynne said, pointing to the fact the Garden sold 20,000 tickets in six weeks. “We made a substantial profit on the fight. That kind of signaled a new era.”
More than having the Big Show, the Garden is looking for competitive battles and that’s what Wynne has tried to do since taking over 18 months ago.
Even though Coley went into last night’s fight a major underdog, he was given a puncher’s chance to beat De La Hoya, who promised this time he would come out slugging. De La Hoya, in many ways, needed to reestablish himself as a fighter and not just the entertainer that he has become. There are some who believe that De La Hoya has lost his heart for boxing. Coley was one of those who believe that De La Hoya is close to ending his boxing career.
An early knockout of Coley would signal that De La Hoya is again boxing’s Golden Boy and would set up a tremendous rematch against Felix Trinidad. Trinidad decisioned De La Hoya in September in the so-called “Fight of the Millennium” when De La Hoya spent the last four rounds running away.
Since boxing has had so many controversial decisions of late, a knockout by either fighter would be welcomed.
De La Hoya, an expert at revisionist history, which happens to be a staple of boxing, now says he simply ran out of gas in the Trinidad fight, becoming just another late-night Vegas gambler who failed. All that is ridiculous because before that fight, De La Hoya was running around Las Vegas telling people of his new diet – jammed with supplements – that made him stronger and in the best shape of his life.
“This is a very important fight for me,” De La Hoya (32-1) said. “I want to bounce back in a big way. I’m going to dig deep in this fight. I didn’t do that in my last fight. I had my best camp ever.”
Coley (34-1-2) was looking at this fight as a breakthrough performance and said that De La Hoya is ripe for the taking.
“He has fought all the name fighters,” Coley said, “but he fought them when he wanted to. He fought Pernell Whitaker when he was too old. He fought [Julio Cesar] Chavez when he was too old. He fought Ike Quartey when he was too old. He got me at the right time. I’m going to give him an excuse to quit boxing.”
