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Jewish boxing champion Yuri Foreman and challenger Miguel Cotto were at the new, $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium recently to promote their June 5 title fight — the first boxing match at Yankee Stadium in more than three decades.

The ring will be built in right-center field, under an enormous canopy, with about 7,000 field-level seats. The rest of the seating will be in the outfield bleachers and down the first-base line, and promoters are hoping between 30,000 and 35,000 fans show up for the first sporting event besides baseball at the facility, which opened last spring.

The two fighters will be vying for Foreman’s junior middleweight title. Cotto is a former world champion, having lost two of his last four fights, including one to superstar Manny Pacquiao.

Foreman, who was born in Belarus but makes his home in Brooklyn, is studying to become a rabbi and has backing from the large Jewish population in the New York area. Because Shabbat doesn’t end until sundown on June 5, a Saturday night, the starting time for the Cotto-Foreman bout has been pushed back to 11:30 p.m. local time.

“It’s an honor fighting here,” Foreman, the WBA titleholder in the 148- to 154-pound weight class, said at an April 9 press conference. “It’s a dream.”

Yankee Stadium has a proud tradition of hosting fights, but the last fight there was Muhammad Ali versus Ken Norton on Sept. 28, 1976. — ap & jta

 

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