Robson Conceicao Is Ready For His Match with Newark's Shakur Stevenson

The Ironbound section of Newark is largely populated with a Brazilian and Portuguese community that went to great lengths to make their champion feel welcomed. The press conference was held at the Mantena Global Care Center in the North Ward of Newark. Among the guests invited to greet Conceicao, was Leonardo Enge, Deputy Consul General of Brazil, in New York.

It’s very important for us. This is, as I said, one of the largest communities we have here in the US, a very vibrant community, very united community, which is not obvious. Not every community abroad is so tightly connected as this one is. So it's always a pleasure to be here. And we are very excited about this match because as you as you saw one famous person from sports comes here and unites people even more.

Ricardo Salazar, the President and CEO of the Greater Newark Convention and Visitor's Bureau spoke about how both fighters will be boxing in front of their hometown audience.

Well, you know, it's not often that you have a top athlete, that is not just a top athlete, but just happens to be an accomplished amateur and our professional boxer who won the gold medal in 2016, at the Rio Olympics, to have him fight, arguably the best fighter in the world, in front of his hometown fans, and a fighter also in front of his Brazilian contingency, you know, so it's very, it's a very unique setting, we're proud to be part of it, because we feel that it's going to be an electric night.

Councilman Mike Silva of Newark’s East Ward joked that he’ll be the only councilman cheering for Robson at the fight but the city of Newark is the real winner.

This is a great day for the city of Newark. We're going to have a championship fight at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. I invite everybody to come out and enjoy a great night of boxing. As for the Brazilian part of this, I represent a large Brazilian community here in the East ward. This is a dream come true for the Brazilian community and the East ward. We have different cultures here but the Brazilian community makes up a large part of it. And I just wish both fighters lots of luck. I support both fighters greatly, but I'd like to see the underdog sometimes win.

See Stevenson versus Conceicao live at the Prudential Center in Newark September 23rd.