The canvas has been laid down just north of 43rd Street. The ropes are up, the ring gleaming under LED billboards. And on Friday night, three of boxing’s most volatile and compelling stars – Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney and Teófimo López – step into what might be the sport’s strangest stage yet: a pop-up fight arena smack in the middle of Times Square.
Barely half a block from Jimmy’s Corner, more than 100 digital screens will beam the feed across the famed Manhattan tourist spot. A closed-off footprint will morph into a fight zone, cordoned by security, hemmed in by chain-link fencing and pulsing with spectacle. A ring abutting the US armed forces recruiting station will be the unlikely epicenter of a tripleheader not quite like anything boxing has attempted before.
