NEW YORK CITY – In almost any major American city, each of the three fights that will be presented on May 2 in New York’s Times Square could be a standalone main event in its own right. Ryan Garcia versus Rolando Romero, Devin Haney versus Jose Ramirez and Teofimo Lopez Jnr versus Arnold Barboza Jnr are the kind of matchups you will usually see in Madison Square Garden or Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Instead, those fights will be part of a first-of-its-kind card that will take place in Times Square, the busiest intersection in the United States, putting the sport of professional boxing on the biggest of public stages.
With about 300,000 to 400,000 passing through Manhattan’s Midtown area daily, the event stands a strong possibility of exceeding the record for the largest crowd to ever witness a boxing event – 135,132 who turned out to watch middleweight champion Tony Zale knock out Billy Pryor at Juneau Park in Milwaukee back in 1941.
Oscar De La Hoya, who is one of the promoters overseeing the logistics for the event, alongside Matchroom Boxing and Ring magazine, said he expects “half a million people, for free” to be in attendance for the card.
“I think New York has handled big events – Times Square, New Year’s Eve, millions of people,” said De La Hoya, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions.
Eddie Hearn, chairman of Matchroom, admits that the undertaking is “a big challenge,” but he was tight-lipped about what the event will look like and even where the ring itself will be placed in the Times Square area, which extends from West 42nd to West 47th Streets alongside Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
“You will see," Hearn said. “What you see will absolutely blow your mind in Times Square.”
There is still plenty that is not known about the card, like how fans can get access to the fights, or what would happen in the event of rain, or how security will be handled for an event that could draw hundreds of thousands of observers. Part of the reason for the unanswered questions is because there was limited media availability with the principals, including promoters, and much of that time was occupied by content creators holding camera phones seeking hot takes about fighters not associated with the event, asking questions about whether Gervonta Davis should have been charged with a knockdown when he took a knee this past weekend, or who would win in a potential fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Terence Crawford.
Doug Fischer, the editor-in-chief of Ring magazine and the press conference’s host, had all of the right questions in mind but none of the answers. Those, he said, will be revealed in time.
“It’s visionary, and some will say it’s crazy, because they start thinking about the logistics of it,” Fischer said. “‘How does that work – Times Square – they’re just gonna build a ring there?’ ‘Are they gonna block stuff off?’ ‘What about the foot traffic?’ ‘Are they gonna show it on the screens?’ Or, ‘How is this gonna work?’ And I would say, stay tuned, just watch. It’s going to happen.”
Additionally, Fischer hinted that Riyadh Season was planning other out-of-the-box events this year in “imagination-stretching locations” in the United States, including “historical monuments.”
De La Hoya, when asked about how promoters would be able to shut down traffic in order to accommodate a large crowd, laughed as he said, “It took a lot of money.”
Turki Alalshikh, the new owner of Ring magazine and chairman of the General Entertainment Authority (GEA) of Saudi Arabia, has been the driving force behind the Riyadh Season boxing cards, pumping significant funds into the sport to break down promotional barriers in order to make some of the biggest matchups possible.
He revealed earlier this month in a video on Ring Magazine’s YouTube channel that only 100-300 seats – reserved for invite-only guests – will be made available.
“It will be something amazing,” said Alalshikh, who has mused recently about holding events at places like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, The Colosseum in Rome and the Pyramids of Mexico.
De La Hoya expressed some trepidation about doing an outdoor event, particularly in May, when about a third of the days typically experience rain in New York City. “One thing about us, we’re always a little skeptical of doing outdoor events, because you never know – the rain, the weather,” said De La Hoya.
Although this is likely to be the biggest sporting event to take place in Times Square, it isn’t the first. The area has hosted basketball tournaments, like in 2023, when five courts were constructed between 46th and 48th streets for an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) 3-on-3 tournament. It also wouldn’t be the first time that boxing would be broadcast in Times Square, as EPIX promoted its brief foray into the sport by streaming telecasts on one of the big screens for fights such as Carl Froch vs Lucian Bute and Wladimir Klitschko vs Mariusz Wach back in the early half of the 2010s.
The stakes will be high for the card, as the plan for now is for Garcia and Haney, should they defeat their opponents, to meet in an October rematch of their controversial fight last April, which Garcia won before the outcome was changed to a no-contest, due to Garcia testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
The winner of that rematch could potentially be in line for a shot at Lopez, who holds the WBO junior welterweight title. A lot has to happen before any of those other matchups can have pen put to paper, however.
“If there’s one thing that running a publication has taught me, in boxing, there are no long-range plans,” Fischer said. “You’ve got to be loosey-goosey, you’ve got to roll with uncertainty and abrupt changes.”
Perhaps more specifics will be unveiled at the second press conference for the Times Square boxing event, scheduled for March 10 in Los Angeles.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for krikya360.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at .