Plenty of sizzle for tonight’s Cotto-Foreman matchup

NEW YORK – There is a familiar saying that speaks to the art of successfully peddling a possibly defective product: “If you can’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.”

The history of boxing is rife with tales of fighters who might not have brought much meat to their professional endeavors, but there was some curious or controversial aspect of their lives that enabled promoters to squeeze out all the sizzle possible. And the sales pitch grows louder when there is some element of conflict to lure paying customers.

On various nights, the conflict has been presented as black vs. white, young vs. old, perceived good guy vs. perceived bad guy, one nationality vs. another. But it has been years – no, make that decades – since a story line has been so rich with possibilities as is tonight’s HBO-televised defense by WBA super welterweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KOs) against three-time former world titlist Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KOs) in the first boxing match to be held in the new (well, since 2009), $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium.

Cotto, a Puerto Rican national hero who has made appearances in near proximity to the Puerto Rican Day Parade almost an annual occurrence, will be fighting before a large, enthusiastic group of supporters in New York for the seventh time. It will be interesting to see how much the 29-year-old banger has left after going 2-2 in his last four bouts, including beatdowns by Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao.

But, as intriguing a topic as the state of Cotto’s present skill level would normally be, it pales in comparison to the sizzle that has attached itself to Foreman, also 29, whose journey to his sport’s center stage, while potentially brief, has been a long time in the making.

Just try to identify another current Jewish fighter who was born in the former Soviet Union (Belarus); emigrated with his family as a child to Israel, where he learned to box in an Arab gym where the other kids were openly hostile to his presence; won three Israeli national amateur national titles; came in 2000 to Brooklyn, where he won a New York Golden Gloves title; and, as of Nov. 14, when he outpointed Daniel Santos in Las Vegas, became the first Jew to become a world champion since Jackie “Kid” Berg in 1932, or the first to be recognized as such since the great Barney Ross in 1936.

And besides all that, Foreman is studying to become a rabbi.