Sports

Yankees pleased by ‘success’ of Bronx bout

The first boxing event at the new Yankee Stadium was a “major success” according to Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost, but that doesn’t mean boxing will become a regular feature of the Stadium.

Trost and Top Rank chief Bob Arum spoke proudly of the fight, which resulted in Miguel Cotto’s ninth-round TKO victory over previously unbeaten Yuri Foreman for the WBA junior middleweight title on Saturday. But they also gave little reason to believe the glory days of boxing will return to the Stadium.

“This crowd is tremendous and they gave us a tremendous gate. They were very enthusiastic,” Arum said of the 20,272 fans who attended, less than the goal of 27,000.

“This facility is so spectacular,” Arum said. “Yankee Stadium. Just those two words mean so much and to have the privilege of putting a fight here, working with this organization, it’s not like some other places where everything is pulling teeth. The Yankees were partners with us. They worked with us. It was a great, great experience for everybody, so of course we’d come back to Yankee Stadium.”

But when asked how soon he would like to put another fight in Yankee Stadium and if he’s had any discussions with the Yankees about future events, Arum side-stepped the question and pointed to weather and scheduling as two major hurdles.

“We have to do any event around their baseball commitments,” Arum said. “And because it’s an outdoor venue, in the winter months it’s not conducive for boxing. So I would say it depends most on the availability.”

Availability is an issue, but not nearly as big an issue as taxes. According to Trost, the tax on a fighter’s purse is significantly higher for non-residents of New York than it is in other states, which would make it difficult to bring a match like the proposed superfight between Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and Manny Pacquiao to Yankee Stadium.

“[Cotto-Foreman] could come here because the boxers felt they wouldn’t be overtaxed because they’re residents,” Trost said. “We’d love to do [Mayweather-Pacquiao], but I believe both of them are non-residents and the tax could be as much as 13 percent on the purse, where the tax out in Vegas is zero. That’s a big difference.”

The fight itself went off without a hitch, and “everything happened as smoothly as we could have hoped for,” Trost said. “[Arum] and I discussed future fights, but it’s not the type of thing you can say ‘we’ll have a fight every year.’ If the fight is right, and it works out with the fighters and promoters, we’ll discuss it.”

dtomasino@nypost.com