This was inspired by the press releases talking about the upcoming Wednesday Night Fights at the "renowned" Hard Rock Cafe in Time Square. For me, it would be Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens. It's a beautiful tennis stadium that seats over 22,000 (which would increase if it's set up for boxing). It'd be like the tennis stadium at Home Depot Center, except on a far grander scale. I think it would be far more practical than Yankee Stadium, which sometimes gets talked about as an outdoor boxing venue. Another would be the Galen Center on the USC campus. It's a brand new basketball arena near downtown LA with 10,0000-plus seating. With the Grand Olympic Auditorium and the Great Western Forum no longer used for boxing, the city of LA could really use a state of the art facility for shows that don't quite fit in Staples...and are closer to downtown than the HDC in Carson.
No particular venue comes to mind for me, but i would like to see some larger stadiums used like they do in Europe for big fights.
I would argue that all major fights should probably be held in either McMahon Stadium or the Pengrowth Saddledone.
Yeah, they were talking about Pacquiao/Soto in Vancouver for last October. I was going to make the trip if it happened. Instead we got MAB/Pac II, which was a crappier fight at a venue I couldn't make at the time. :shit:
There must be a significant Filipino population in Vancouver for Arum to have entertained the idea of having that fight in Vancouver. I would've liked to have seen that fight end up there. I just think the sport gets so stale when fights are always held in the same predictable places.
RJJ vs Calzaghe at Qualcomm Stadium at halftime during the Chargers vs Patriots playoff game. RJJ stops Calzaghe in 8 then the Chargers finish destroying the Patriots 35-10.
Yeah, there are a ton of Filipino's in Vancouver. It really looked like it was going to happen there for a while. I agree with you on stale venues. I would like to see more fights go down in major stadiums rather than casinos.
the Verizon center in DC. the last boxing event held there was tyson-mcbride. mayweather is a big draw in DC and would've sold out the arena if he fought Sharmba Mitchell there instead of fighting him in Oregon.
i though Caesars as gonna use their new outdoor arena for more boxing, but since Marg-Cintron 1, they have not.
i know that they have some sort of a venue at the wynn. i wonder how big it is. verno phillips fought there last year or the one before.
You couldn't pay me to go there in the summer, though.:: Weren't they saying it well beyond 100 that day?
Didn't they also end up putting the remainder of the Klitschko-Rahman card there after that fight was cancelled? The Orleans looked like they had a pretty nice arena but I don't think it lasted long as a boxing destination.
jake i see you lurking about you biznatch :nono: outdoor venues are always cool, id like to see one in the mets new park once its finished, citipark i think itll be called
correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the show where nobody beyond the main event got paid on time, and that whatever late checks the rest of the fighters received bounced? All of which produced a massive lawsuit involving anyone with even the slightest vested interest in the event? understandable why the arena would be reluctant to return to the boxing business any time soon.
I completely agree about the outdoor venues. The Home Depot Center has become the primary outdoor venue. There used to be a lot of fights outdoors in some other So Cal spots, like Indio, though they were primarily Indian casinos. It's a shame there aren't any more in Las Vegas. It's been pretty rare in recent years. Trinidad-Reid, Klitschko-Williamson, Quintana-Julio off the top of my head.
I'd really love to see the outdoor car park at Las Vegas used again. This was always a great summer venue from the late 70s to early 90s... The last big fight I can remember there was De la Hoya vs Chavez, back in 1996.
I think that may have also been the last full-scale Closed Circuit fight. That was really the end of an era in boxing.
There re buildings on that area now. Yeah, the area here they had all thelegendary fights is now a convention hall.
Is the convention hall where they held Mosley-Stone? Caesar's really hasn't done much with boxing recently. The Vegas scene is just so dominated by Mandalay Bay and MGM right now. The owner of Planet Hollywood wanted to get involved in boxing, but they really blew it with the way they handled (and priced) Calzaghe-Hopkins, which wasn't a great fight to get their boxing feet wet anyways. Torres-Holt II should be a good fight, and the venue they're using might be a good smaller venue for fights not on the major ppv/HBO level. Have you heard more about the talk of AEG building a huge (supposedly around 20,000-seat arena) near the strip, close to Caesar's? It would be more convenient than having to drive/take a cab to the Thomas & Mack.
