History of Boxing at Yankee Stadium
Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins will meet Joe Calzaghe in multi-million superfight on April 13, 2008 and vowed he will crush Calzaghe’s 44-fight unbeaten streak. Calzaghe attracted some 50,000 fans to the Millennium Stadium when he won against Mikkel Kessler and Hopkins believes the Brits would troop to any place in the United States.
The fight will take place at the Yankee Stadium, New York to satisfy the demand for a bigger capacity, with Ricky Hatton drawing several thousand fans from Britain during his clash with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in Las Vegas.
The Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 as a baseball playground but hosted several boxing matches to accommodate big turnouts. Benny Leonard retained the lightweight championship in a 15-round decision over Lou Tendler on July 24, 1923, before more than 58,000 fans. It was the first of 30 championship bouts that took place at the famed Stadium.
On July 1927, the veteran former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey came from behind to defeat favorite Jack Sharkey by landing several controversial punches that were supposed to be illegitimate.
Sharkey experienced the same terrible misfortune on July 1930 during a heavyweight championship bout, when his knockout punch on Max Schmeling was declared illegal and Schmeling won by default. On July 1928, Gene Tunney successfully defended the heavyweight title against Tom Heeney and retired as champion.
Considered the most famous boxing contest ever fought at the Yankee Stadium was on June 22, 1938, when Joe Louis, a black American, faced Schmeling, a German. Adolf Hitler watched the rematch vigilantly, ordering Schmeling to trounce Louis, whom Hitler openly criticized.
Schmeling had beaten Louis in their first encounter in 1936. But in the Stadium, Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round to successfully defend his title. This was one of eight championship fights the "Brown Bomber" fought at the Yankee Stadium.
On July 1, 1939, Max Baer defeated Lou Nova in the first televised boxing match in the United States. On September 27, 1946, Tony Zale knocked out New Yorker Rocky Graziano for the middleweight crown, the first of their own trilogy.
On June 25, 1952, middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson battled for his third title against light-heavyweight champ Joey Maxim at Yankee Stadium. More than 47,000 witnessed Robinson pounded Maxim but lost steam due to the heat in round 14. Even the referee was replaced due to heat exhaustion.
On September 28, 1976, Muhammad Ali defended his heavyweight crown against Ken Norton. That time, Norton was one of only two boxers who had beaten Ali (Joe Frazier was the other one) and this was their third and final encounter. Norton led at the beginning of the fight, but Ali improved in the later rounds to win by unanimous decision.
"Very few people really understand what it means to be a fighter. I hate it when I hear someone say, 'That fighter doesn't have guts. I hate that, I don't care if you're a world champion six times over or a four-round fighter, to step inside that ring, you have to have guts" Oscar De La Hoya
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