PHILLY BOXING HISTORY

Venue: Liacouras Center  

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  THE LIACOURAS CENTER  
     
 

 
     
     
 

The Liacouras Center was opened in 1997 as the home of the Temple University Owls basketball team. Originally named the Apollo of Temple University, the venue hosted one boxing show under that name in 1998 when Olympic Gold Medalist David Reid returned to Philadelphia for his 10th professional bout. Reid scored a knockout of Simon Brown in the main event of that show, but the eight-fight card also featured Shane Mosley in a defense of his IBF lightweight championship (KO5 Wilfrido Ruiz). It was an auspicious debut for the site as a boxing arena. However, it was another ten years before boxing returned to the building. By that time, the place had been renamed The Liacouras Center, after Temple University President Peter J. Liacouras (in 2000). As it turned out in the coming years, the Liacouras Center would be an on-again-off-again boxing site, mostly reserved for boxing matches that were just too big for the small local clubs, but not big enough for the larger Philly arenas - even though

 
 

the size of the Liacouras (about 10,200 seating capacity) is plenty big for the biggest Philly fights of the era. 

The second event featured another homecoming, this one for Bernard Hopkins in 2009, when the North Philly multi-champ was between titles. Hopkins won a twelve-round decision over Enrique Ornelas. Also on the card that night, local Danny Garcia kayoed Enrique Colin for his 15th professional win.

A four-year gap came before the next bout, perhaps the best ever at the venue. In 2014, heavyweights Steve Cunningham and Amir Mansour staged a memorable battle that saw the former two-time cruiserweight champion come off the floor twice in round five, only to rally back to defeat Mansour in a fight for the USBA title belt. The fight earned the Briscoe Award as the "2014 Philly Fight of the Year".

Boxing returned to the Liacouras in 2016 with Danny Garcia tuning up for his welterweight unification bout with Keith Thurman with a seventh round TKO of Samuel Vargas. Future champ Tevin Farmer headlined in 2017, winning a ten round decision over Arturo Reyes, despite tearing his right biceps muscle in round two. In 2018, Top Rank Boxing staged a junior featherweight championship fight at the venue. Isaac Dogboe rallied from a first round knockdown to stop defending champion Jesse Magdaleno in round eleven.

The Liacouras Center
Indoor Arena / 10,200 Capacity
North Philly - 1776 N. Broad St.

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 KEY DATES FOR
THE LIACOURAS CENTER

   1998 - First boxing card - 6/27
   1998 - Reid vs. Brown
   1998 - Mosley vs. Ruiz
   2009 - Hopkins vs. Ornelas    
   2014 - Cunningham vs. Mansour
   2016 - Garcia vs. Vargas
   2018 - Dogboe vs. Magdaleno
   2019 - Farmer vs. Carroll
   2019 - Beterbiev vs. Gvozdyk
   2020 - Rosario vs. Williams 
 

 
 


However, the true main event on that night was a ten round heavyweight contest between locals Bryant Jennings and Joey Dawejko. Jennings won the fight by decision. Also on the card was North Philly's Jesse Hart, South Philly's Christian Carto, and future champ Shakur Stevenson of Newark, NJ, in his sixth pro start.

2019 was the busiest year to date for the Liacouras Center, with three fight cards. In March, Tevin Farmer returned to defend his junior lightweight title with an entertaining points win over Irishman Jono Carroll. Also on the star-studded card that night was a women's world lightweight title bout between Katie Taylor and Rose Volante. Taylor won by TKO in nine rounds. Also, Maciej Sulecki defeated Philly's Gabriel Rosado over ten rounds in the "2019 Philly Fight of the Year". To date, this is the best-attended boxing show at the Liacouras, with a reported attendance of 5,246. In August of 2019, Jason Sosa stopped Lydell Rhodes in seven rounds. Then in October, Artur Beterbiev TKO'd Oleksandr Gvozdyk in a light heavyweight unification championship.

In 2020, junior middleweight champion Julian Williams, Philadelphia, returned home for his first title defense, but was upset in shocking fashion by underdog Jeison Rosario. In what was supposed to be a homecoming celebration for Williams, ended up being a dramatic, but disappointing evening for local fight fans.

The Julian Williams fight was just the tenth boxing show at the Liacouras Center in its twenty two year history.

 
     
     
 

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