Yuri Foreman is making history!

By Sam Gregory: On June 5th undefeated Yuri Foreman 28-0 with 8 KO’s will defend his WBA light middleweight crown against Miguel Cotto 34-2 with 27 KO’s at Yankee Stadium in a scheduled 12 round bout that is promoted by Bob Arum. Miguel Cotto is certainly known for the large Puerto Rican following he has in and around New York City but Yuri told me he expects a very large Jewish crowd to show up to cheer for the future Rabbi. Along with his wife, Yuri currently makes his home in Brooklyn just across the Whitestone Bridge from the Bronx.

Yuri’s name will be right up there alongside the greatest athletes in history to appear at Yankee Stadium. DiMaggio, Ruth and Gehrig; Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali and Max Schmeling have all made their mark at Yankee Stadium. Yuri told me he’s excited just thinking about making history this June. Yuri Foreman’s name will be in the history books as the first professional prize fighter to make an appearance at the new Yankee Stadium. But more importantly to Yuri he’ll go down in history as “the first Jewish fighter to fight in the new Yankee Stadium not to mention the first fighter in the new millennium”.

Yuri will be in good company with another great Jewish fighter, as he pointed out to me he’ll be in the history books right next to “the first fighter to ever fight at Yankee Stadium, Benny Leonard”.

Yuri said he’s “preparing both physically and mentally for this fight, the biggest fight in my career to date.”

Yuri also confirmed for me that he hired Hall-of-Fame trainer Emanuel Steward to “help out for a couple weeks; three at the most.”

Although Yuri doesn’t usually pay a lot of attention to statistics, being the bigger man in this fight will play in his favor. Yuri stands 5’11” to Cotto’s 5’7” and Yuri also has a five inch reach advantage. (Foreman 72” to Cotto 67”)

It’s been said recently if Miguel Cotto doesn’t win this fight he will be out of the rankings and possibly out of contention for any big fights in the future, but Yuri isn’t thinking about his opponent’s career, instead he said, “I’ll be focused on my goal, to win this fight.”

Just like every fight, “each fighter has his own style. So preparation for this fight will be in accordance to Cotto’s style of fighting.”

According to Yuri’s manger Murray Wilson this is an area where Steward will play a big part. “Manny still knows the fight game very well even though he won’t be in the role of lead trainer. He’s seen plenty of Miguel Cotto fight up close and personal.

In Yuri’s last fight against Daniel Santos on the Pacquiao – Cotto undercard the general feeling around boxing was that Yuri was stepping up in class. As it turned out Santos looked old and out of shape and Foreman had his way with him. Against Cotto, Foreman will have a serious height advantage and there is certainly reason to believe that Cotto is fairly beaten up both physically and mentally at this point in his career.

Foreman is fresh, in shape and has taken no punishment to speak of his entire career. This fight is tailor made for Yuri Foreman to windup in the record books looking like the star he is and make boxing history.

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