Precious Moments at the Fights

Special to TopRank.com

By Lee Samuels

Atlantic City, NJ – “We must do something for the crowd,” Carl Moretti, VP of Boxing of Top Rank, was saying at ringside on Saturday night.

It was the eve of 9-11 and the ballroom was packed with fight fans from New York, Philadelphia and all of New Jersey to watch Yuriorkis Gamboa take on Daniel Ponce De Leon in the main event.

Hours earlier, I was in room 113 at Boardwalk Hall with reporters and Ray Stallone of HBO to watch the live telecast of the Klitschko vs Adamek title fight. On the telecast ring announcer Michael Buffer gave a sweet, touching tribute to 9-11. I was still thinking of it when I left the room.

It was now 10:30 pm, late at night, when Moretti turned and said we must do something now.

Lupe Contreras, our ring announcer in Atlantic City, said he would put together phrasing for the tribute. The plan was to do the salute, then play the national anthem.

Armando Bareno, who works in social media for Top Rank, had a beautiful sound track of the national anthem in his computer and would play it on the sound system in the ballroom.

At last, Lupe went into the ring, director Marty Corwin gave him the que to begin.

As soon as Lupe began to give the 9-11 tribute, there was polite applause which grew much louder. Jim Lampley stood from his HBO announce position. I was in the ring and watched as all of the fight press got to their feet. Fight fans stood and applauded loudly.  Lupe then asked for a moment of silence. You could have heard a pin drop in the ballroom.  Then Lupe announced the playing of the national anthem.

The crowd sang with the national anthem, from beginning to end.

In all of my years at Top Rank, in a ballroom on a Saturday night, this was one of the most….. precious moments.