PUT ‘EM UP

Before the Super Bowl comes to the region, Cowboys Stadium will host a different type of match up.

By Mickey Spagnola

Friday, September 3, 2010 - 4:22am

Way back, when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and the HKS architects were designing Cowboys Stadium, they came up with these artist renderings of just what they envisioned it to someday be.

There was one for football, of course, portraying the vision of what the stadium would look like for a Cowboys game.

There was one for soccer.

There was one for basketball.

There was one for concerts.

And there was one for boxing?

Seriously, boxing, when there had not been a major boxing event in North Texas over the past 25 years?

“I’ve got early renderings, the earliest renderings with a boxing ring in the middle, just as I had a basketball court in the middle,” insisted the Cowboys owner.

Just goes to show when Jerry Jones dreams, he dreams big. Cowboys Stadium, which is still less than a year old and a year away from playing host to Super Bowl XLV, will continue to display its versatility by staging what is fast becoming known as simply The Event: a 12-round World Welterweight Championship between world champion Manny Pacquiao and the WBO No. 1 challenger Joshua Clottey, scheduled for Saturday, March 13, here at Cowboys Stadium.

“The ring will be right over the star and the screen will be right over the ring,” said Jones, who actually shot for the stars by making the highest bid, a $25 million guarantee, for the once proposed Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. championship bout that has yet to materialize, yet was ecstatic to settle for this alternative bout involving the highly-popular Pacquiao.

Those in the North Texas boxing community agree this is the highest profile fight to come to these parts since 1984. Participants agree there is one reason and one reason only a fight of this magnitude, which will be shown in the United States and Canada on HBO pay-per-view and distributed on world-wide TV — with an estimated 50 million watching in China alone – is coming to North Texas.

Cowboys Stadium, the $1.2 billion retractable-roof creation of Jones and the City of Arlington, the very reason why Super Bowl XLV will be played here on Feb. 6, 2011.

“I promoted Ali-Norton at old Yankee Stadium, that was some show,” says Bob Arum, Top Rank Inc. founder and chairman, the promoter of this fight. “But there is nothing in the world like this place, with the electronics, it just blows you away. It’s just incredible, just incredible. That’s why this place will have a big role in boxing for years to come.

“There’s nothing even remotely like this. There is nothing like this stadium, it’s just hard for you to imagine, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Arum in his promoting days now spanning four decades has seen a lot. He claims the biggest fight he ever promoted was the John Tate vs. Gerrie Coetzee WBA World Heavyweight title fight, Oct. 20, 1979 in Pretoria, South Africa, drawing 89,200 to Loftus Versfeld Stadium, the country’s prominent rugby venue.

And when it comes to promoting a fight in the United States, Arum said that’s easy. The biggest had to be Ali-Spinks II for the WBA World Heavyweight title fight, Sept. 15, 1978, drawing 63,350 to the Superdome in New Orleans.

But it’s the size of the futuristic Cowboys Stadium and the electronic capabilities, what with the world’s largest center-hung Diamond Vision screen (160-feet wide by 72-feet high), that make this venue unique and a desirable destination for the world’s largest events.

“This is the Super Bowl of boxing, the greatest place in the world,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s long-time trainer.

As Jones said, the ring will be built right at midfield, over the blue star, and the floor seating configuration will be similar to that of previous basketball games, with seats surrounding the raised ring and then elevated seating rising to the first level of bowl seating.

The initial plan has been to cap the capacity for this fight at 45,000, but Arum said there is a chance if all those seats are sold another 15,000 could be made available — potentially pushing the crowd to 60,000.

Also, the 90-foot high video board will be lowered over the ring for improved viewing, eliminating any such thing as a bad seat in the house. The board was lowered to 39 feet over the stage for the press conference Jan. 19 to announce The Event, and the actual height above the ring for the fight will be determined by how far up into the seating bowl tickets are sold so the board does not create obstructed views of the ring.

“I’ve been to Madison Square Garden and somebody might say, ‘You’re not Madison Square Garden,’ but I would like to ultimately develop the aura and mindset that when we stage a fight here they say it’s like Madison Square Garden,” said Jones, who’s been to at least 20 major boxing events in the country, including Ali-Spinks and Hagler-Hearnes.

Much like the philosophy driving Super Bowl XLV, the idea for this event, too, is for it not to become the first and last major fight in North Texas. To Jones, as was with bringing future Super Bowls to Cowboys Stadium, this is just the start of something big – of what he always envisioned.

“It’s beyond a plan,” Jones said, “it’s a dream come true.”