Can Duddy vs. Foreman sell out Madison Square Garden?

By Boxing News - 06/29/2010 - Comments

Image: Can Duddy vs. Foreman sell out Madison Square Garden?By Dan Ambrose: After John Duddy (29-2, 18 KO’s) was dominated in a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) last Saturday night, Duddy’s promoter Bob Arum said this: “As soon as [Duddy] recovers and as soon as Yuri’s [Foreman] knee heals, we’re going to sell out Madison Square Gardens next year.” Both Duddy and Foreman, incidentally, fight for Arum’s Top Rank Company, and both have now lost their last fights. Foreman (28-1, 8 KO’s) was defeated by Miguel Cotto in a 9th round TKO earlier this month on June 5th at Yankee Stadium.

My question is this: If Cotto-Foreman was only able to sell 20,000 tickets for their Yankee Stadium fight, how on earth is a fight between Duddy and Foreman supposed to do the same kind of numbers when Duddy isn’t nearly as popular as Cotto is. I know Duddy has a strong Irish following in the New York area, but I question whether enough of those fans will be flocking to see him fight in the kinds of numbers needed to sell out Madison Square Garden.

I’m assuming that Arum wants to put Duddy and Foreman, neither of which are champions, as the main event for a fight at Madison Square Garden. I’m thinking if Foreman and Duddy are the main event, then who would be on the undercard? It would have to be some really exciting fighters, I would think, to ensure that the Garden results in a sellout. I don’t know that an undercard of mismatches, like the ones on the Chavez-Duddy undercard, would be enough to pull in 20,000 ticket buyers for the Duddy-Foreman fight.

I think Foreman is a decent fighter, but he did lose to Cotto and was pretty much getting dominated the whole fight. I don’t think Foreman has a huge following, even though he’s been on cable television a number of times in mostly dull-looking fights. But if Foreman-Cotto was only able to bring in 20,000 or so paying fans, then how is Foreman-Duddy supposed to bring in similar or identical numbers? I honestly think Duddy-Foreman would be a good small arena fight, one with around 3500 seats.

I think it would do well with that size seating capacity. It might even sellout, but I suspect there would still be a lot of empty seats still available by fight time. But to put Duddy vs. Foreman in Madison Square Garden in the hopes of it selling out, I think it’s asking a bit too much from fans, especially in this bad economy.

If money was pouring out of boxing fans’ backsides, then, yeah, the Duddy-Foreman fight might sellout under those circumstances. I still seriously doubt that fans would flock to see that fight even under the best of times. I like both fighters, but they are coming off losses and neither of them did look particularly impressive in those defeats. If it was me, I’d stick Duddy-Foreman in a nice hall in Connecticut someplace and hope for the best.



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