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Heavyweight championship boxing returns to Madison Square Garden
A celebrity-studded sellout crowd of 21,284, paying prices from $100 to $1,500, turned the Garden into the center of the boxing universe for the first time in a long time.
It was the first undisputed heavyweight title fight at the arena since Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier in 1971, and the first sellout for a fight of any type in the big arena since Roberto Duran fought Davey Moore in 1983.
"Four hundred bucks will get you upstairs. Anything good downstairs, that's at least $1,500," a scalper said outside the "World's Most Famous Arena." There were plenty of takers, too, as would-be customers appeared to outnumber loose tickets by a wide margin.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, John F. Kennedy Jr., Jack Nicholson, Jerry Seinfeld, Donald Trump, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Bill Parcells, Patrick Ewing, Spike Lee and Michael Douglas were among the celebrities.
For each of them, there were legions of wannabees. Hipsters in thousand-dollar suits, glamorous women who turned dozens of heads at a time, actors and models complimenting each other on their looks.
This was not the cell phone and business suit crowd that frequents Knicks and Rangers games. This was more of a cash crowd, the type of people that pull out diamond-studded money clips of $100 bills when buying their hot dogs and popcorn.
A large and vocal contingent of Brits were in attendance, too, having made the trip overseas to cheer on Lewis, a Jamaican who grew up in Canada and fights out of England.
Even the scalper ranks were speckled with a few fellows whose roots were closer to York than New York.
"Any spares?" a man with a cockney accents asked, which earned him little but quizzical stares.
New York and Madison Square Garden were once synonymous with championship boxing, but that was decades ago when the old Garden was located 18 blocks uptown. In the years since, the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City have monopolized the sport's biggest bouts because of the type of high-rolling crowd it attracts.
The gambling for this fight was kept underground since wagering on sports is illegal everywhere except Nevada. In Las Vegas, Holyfield was a slight favorite.
Much of the pre-fight hype recalled the 1971 Frazier-Ali fight, a classic that was photographed for Life magazine by Frank Sinatra.
"You're happy to get the opportunity to fight there," Holyfield said of the Garden. "That's how you become a part of what they call history."