Yankee Stadium (1923) Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Boxing=== {{unreferenced section|date = April 2013}} [[File:Yankee Stadium setup for Joe Louis v Billy Conn.jpg|thumb|250px|Yankee Stadium being prepared for the boxing match between [[Joe Louis]] and [[Billy Conn]] in June 1946.]] When Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, the Polo Grounds continued to host boxing matches; however, Yankee Stadium was home to prizefighting beginning in its first few months. Benny Leonard retained the lightweight championship in a 15-round decision over Lew Tendler on July 24, 1923, in front of more than 58,000 fans. It was the first of 30 championship bouts to be held at the Stadium. (This excludes dozens of non-title fights.) The boxing ring was placed over second base; a {{convert|15|ft|m|adj=on}} vault contained electrical, telegraph and telephone connections. In July 1927, the aging former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey came from behind to defeat heavily favored Jack Sharkey by delivering several questionable punches that were deemed illegal. Sharkey had similarly bad luck in a July 1930 heavyweight championship bout at Yankee Stadium, when his knockout punch to [[Max Schmeling]] was ruled illegal; Schmeling won by default. In July 1928, [[Gene Tunney]] upheld the heavyweight title against [[Tom Heeney]] at Yankee Stadium, and then retired as champion. Perhaps the most famous boxing match ever held at Yankee Stadium was on June 22, 1938, when [[Joe Louis]], an African-American, squared off against Schmeling, a German. [[Adolf Hitler]] followed the rematch carefully, imploring Schmeling to defeat Louis, whom Hitler publicly berated. This left some with what they perceived as a moral predicament: root for the black fighter, or for the Nazi. Schmeling had defeated Louis in 1936, but in defense of his title, Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round. This was one of eight championship fights the "Brown Bomber" fought at Yankee Stadium. On July 1, 1939, Max Baer defeated Lou Nova at Yankee Stadium, in the first [[televised]] boxing match in the United States. The event was broadcast by television station W2XBS, forerunner of [[WNBC-TV]]. (The World Series was not televised until 1947.) On September 27, 1946, [[Tony Zale]] knocked out New York native [[Rocky Graziano]] for the middleweight crown; it was the first of three bouts between Zale and Graziano. On June 25, 1952, middleweight champion [[Sugar Ray Robinson]] sought his third title against light-heavyweight champ Joey Maxim at Yankee Stadium. More than 47,000 saw Robinson outfight Maxim but lose due to heat exhaustion in round 14 (due to the weather that topped {{convert|104|F|C}}). The referee who declared Maxim the winner was the second that night; the first had left the fight due to heat exhaustion. On June 26, 1959, 5-1 Swedish underdog [[Ingemar Johansson]] defeated [[Floyd Patterson]] at the stadium by stoppage in the third round to become world heavyweight champion. After its 1970s renovation, Yankee Stadium hosted only one championship fight. On September 28, 1976, a declining [[Muhammad Ali]] defended his heavyweight crown against [[Ken Norton]]. To that point, Norton was one of only two boxers who had beaten Ali (in 1973); this was their third and final, meeting. Norton led for most of the fight, but Ali improved in the later rounds to win by unanimous decision. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page