On August 2nd, Sergey Kovalev stopped a game Blake Caparello at the Atlantic City Revel Casino and Resort. With the stoppage, Kovalev punched his ticket to face Bernard Hopkins later this year.
Last week it was announced that Hopkins-Kovalev will take place on November 8th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
A couple weeks after the Kovalev fight at Revel, news spread that less than a month removed from the Kovalev fight, the Revel Casino will be closing it’s doors after struggling to find pay dirt in a struggling gambling town.The closing is not really a shock to many as the Revel Casino has been in bankruptcy and toiled in delays from the beginning.
As the news of the announcement of the Hopkins Kovalev fight has spread and the excitement of these two men facing one another will only grow as the fight nears closer. I couldn’t help but think how empty this fight feels.The fight itself is exciting and a match up many wanted but Atlantic City needs more than a light heavyweight title fight to give the city a shot at redemption.
While Revel may be the biggest named Casino closing this week in Atlantic City, it’s not the only one. Within three weeks, Revel along with the Showboat and Trump Plaza will all shut their doors.
Atlantic City in it’s heyday could compete with Las Vegas as a casino juggernaut town. However over the past few years, AC would be envious if it could compete with downtown Las Vegas these days. Actually, that is a insult to downtown LV. Regardless, AC is down, out and personally, hard to see how it becomes nothing more than a ghost of how people describe what AC used to be.
My first trip to AC was for the Paul Williams vs Sergio Martinez fight in 2010. As someone who spent his life in Colorado, watching Arturo Gatti face the likes of Mayweather, Baldomir and most memorable Ward. I had high hopes for Atlantic City, naively, I suppose I thought it would be similar to Las Vegas.
However, I was surprised to find AC to be dead. While most fights even in non boxing fight towns have buzz when a fight is in town, AC lacked any sort of buzz for the fight, hell, it lacked buzz for being a casino town. The Boardwalk was slow, casino’s were worse and for a fight night, it felt like nothing I had experienced at a major fight before.
Since the Williams-Martinez fight, I’ve been back for a few fights and it’s only got worse. Broner, Andre Ward, Gamboa, none of them could sell out the Boardwalk Hall. Furthermore, this bled into the Casino. I would be hard pressed to believe that even non boxing fans would know a major fight was going on a few hundred feet away.
What does this mean for the fight in November? Hard to say, but more than 8000 people will lose their jobs in the next few weeks and most will not get jobs in other casinos. According to neighnorhoodscout.com, AC ranks 13th as the most dangerous place to live in the USA. Am I saying that AC is unsafe to attend a boxing fight or enjoy for a weekend of gambling, no.
However AC does not feel welcoming, it does not feel like a place to host a boxing fight and honestly, I have a hard time seeing what Golden Boy and Main Events see in AC as the place to host this fight. Perhaps the promoters feel like the can help the city by brining the fight to AC.
However, as a fight fan, AC is the last place I want to go a watch a fight these days. After the fact that most the casinos near the Boardwalk hall lack great entertainment for after the fights, hotels.com has no hotels within a half mile that are not less than $210 for a night. Compared to the same night in Las Vegas where you can book the Vadara, NYNY for less than $200 and it’s hard to understand what AC has to offer.
If keeping the fight on the East Coast due to Kovalev’s following, then D.C. or even Mohegan Sun could have been looked into. In the end, AC will host one of the most anticipated fights of the year and perhaps AC earned this fight, however for a fan who has been there and had high hopes for AC, I’d rather it be anywhere but Atlantic City