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Venetian Arena’s “Pow in Macau”
The winner of Saturday night’s heavy weight fight at the Venetian Arena will climb into the world’s top 10 ranked boxers and get the chance to contend for a world title.
Veteran of the sport Ray Mercer from the United States will take on up and coming Puerto Rican Derric Rossy in what is being billed as the first major international heavyweight fight in Macau.
Up for grabs are the Asian championship belts of the North American Boxing Organization (NABO), World Boxing Foundation (WBF) and World Boxing Council (WBC).
The bout is part of the Venetian Macao resort’s effort to bring Las Vegas style entertainment to the Cotai strip and follows last year’s Federer versus Sampras tennis match and a visit by two NBA teams.
Aged 46, Mercer is approaching the end of a career which included a World Heavyweight title and a gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. After losing a title fight in 1998 Mercer tried kick boxing, martial arts and in March last year, cage fighting. Of 42 boxing matches he has won 35.
His 27 year old opponent, Rossy, is tipped by some as a future world champion having lost only one match from 18. The wide generation gap between the fighters was on display at yesterday’s press conference. A very laid back Mercer told reporters he had been training for three weeks for this fight, flashing his gold tooth grin, while Rossy said he had been in the gym since last August.
Rossy is part of the new wave of professional boxers who are clean cut and educated, promoter Sal Musumeci told the Macau Daily Times. The soft spoken giant holds a teaching degree from Boston College and tried boxing to stay in shape for NFL tryouts. After winning 10 from 10 amateur bouts he turned professional.
“I think this fight is going to catapult me into the top 10 in the world and I hope to have a bright future in the sport,” said Rossy.
Mercer on the other hand wants to go out with a bang.
“I hope to gain a victory and take home a couple of titles for my kids to play with,” he said.
“I think I still have a couple of good fights in me.”
Also on the card for Saturday night is a women’s boxing match between Chinese Wang Ya Nan and American Janaya Davis.
Both boxers don’t earn enough to live from the sport.
The broad shouldered Wang trains twice a day for three hours each session. To pay the rent she trains other boxers at a Shanghai gym.
Davis works as a fire-fighter and has to travel abroad to get paid matches.
“The US has had its boom, but the sport is very big now in China and Africa,” she said.
Having organised over 200 fights in venues such as New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Musumeci’s chose Macau for his first overseas’ bout because of its closeness to China. If it proves popular he would like to organise a match every month.
“We were contemplating different places but in the end we went right to the top,” he said.
The match will be broadcast live to 150 million viewers in China and more than 100 million US fans will see a delayed broadcast.
The bill also includes three matches between Hong Kong and Macau boxers. Representing Macau is 21 year old student Fong Wai in the 51 kilogram bout, 31 year old advertising officer, Jet Wu in the 60 kilogram class and recent arrival to Macau from Napal, 24 year old Prabhudash Thapa Magar who works with with the Venetian security division.
Despite the local talent on the bill, interest in the fight here in Macau hasn’t blown organisers away.
“Ticket sales have so far been disappointing,” said Patrick Pang, owner of Happy and Lucky International Culture and Media Co. Ltd, the local promoter.
His partner in the event, Musumeci is confident locals will turn out once they learn of the quality of the Saturday night’s card.
“The world is waiting to see who the next big heavyweight champion of the world is going to be,” he said.
“This match will give the winner the chance to challenge for the heavy weight title and those that go can say that they have seen him box.
“We’ve had the thriller in Manila, this is gong to be the pow in Macau.”
From the Macau Daily Times
http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5962&Itemid=28