Foreman, Cotto could be headed to Yankee Stadium

To Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto goes the honor of headlining the first boxing event at the new Yankee Stadium - provided plans for a scheduled bar mitzvah don't interfere. The two fighters will meet for Foreman's WBA light-middleweight title June 5 if details of the agreement can be worked out.

According to an Associated Press report, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said the fight will be shifted to June 12 at Madison Square Garden if the conflict with the bar mitzvah can't be resolved. Considering Foreman is studying to be a rabbi at a Brooklyn synagogue, perhaps he can mediate a solution.

"We need a wise old man with a long flowing white beard and a Bible in one hand," Dovid Efune, who handles public relations for Foreman, joked in an interview with Newsday. "There is a bit of a conflict, but we hope it can be resolved.

"From our end, the magnitude of this event can't be overstated. It would be the greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath."

OK, maybe that's overstating it a bit. But you get the idea. According to Efune, nothing has been signed with Cotto, but all parties are on board and Arum has expressed his intention to hold the fight at the Stadium. Arum promoted the last fight at the old Yankee Stadium between heavyweights Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton on Sept. 28, 1976.

"[The Yankees] have leased out some lounges for this bar mitzvah, and part of the deal was, for a half-hour or so, they could use the big screen in centerfield to show pictures and all that sort of stuff," Arum told AP. "Obviously, you can't do that if there's fights going on."

Arum later told Newsday: "There's not going to be a problem if we get the bar mitzvah solved, which I think we will do."

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If the conflict can't be resolved, the fight would move to the Garden a week later, the day before the Puerto Rican Day parade. Cotto (32-3-1, 27 KOs), who is Puerto Rican, traditionally fights in New York around that time. This will be his first fight at 154 pounds.

Arum expects negotiations with the Yankees to resume later this week. No matter which day the fight is held, Arum said it won't begin until after 11:30 p.m. because the Jewish Sabbath doesn't officially end until sundown, around 9:15 Saturday. Foreman (28-0, 8 KOs), a native of Belarus who lives in Brooklyn, will be making his first defense of the title he won by upsetting Daniel Santos.

Looking ahead to the possibility of fighting at Yankee Stadium, Efune said: "It's such a prestigious venue, and it allows the opportunity for so many more people to be there and experience the electricity of the moment.

"The fact that Yuri is a Jewish fighter and New York is the Jewish capital of the Diaspora with over 21/2 million Jews that live here, to have that opportunity for so many people to come out and get behind their guy would be fantastic."