Roberto Clemente Coliseum

General information

The Coliseum is named after baseball hall of famer Roberto Clemente, who died in a plane crash off Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Carolina in 1972, while flying with relief articles to be given to victims of the Nicaragua earthquake. Construction of the facility began in the early 1970s, it was finished in January 1973, and inaugurated in February of that year by the Fania All-Stars.

The coliseum has been host to a variety of events, including world championship boxing and basketball, business expos, circus, concerts and other things.

Many Puerto Rican and international performers have been at the arena, among others.

Concerts that have been held there include:

Van Halen were scheduled to perform during their III Tour on September 20 and December 11, 1998, but the shows were cancelled.

It has been the home of three different BSN professional basketball teams and the BSN has also used it as a neutral site for their most important games, including game 7 of the championship finals, several times.

The Coliseum has also been used by religious leaders for conferences and religious services.

Most of the world championship boxing bouts fought in Puerto Rico during the late 1970s and early 1980s were fought at the Roberto Clemente coliseum, including Roberto Durán's world title defense versus Mexican Leoncio Ortiz, Wilfredo Gómez's knockout win against Carlos Zarate, many of Samuel Serrano's title defenses, and the fight where Muhammad Ali defended his title against Jean Pierre Coopman, the only time a world Heavyweight championship fight has been held in Puerto Rico. George Foreman had his last fight (and experienced the vision that led him to become a born-again Christian in one of its dressing rooms) before announcing his first retirement there, and Julio César Chávez had one of his first important fights there, on the undercard of Edwin Rosario's world Lightweight championship win against José Luis Ramírez. Because of all the boxing action going on during that era, many observers call the period from the middle 1970s to the middle 1980s as the golden age of boxing in Puerto Rico.

The arena also hosted the final phase of the 1974 World Basketball championship

The Coliseum has also been the place of large political rallies, and Puerto Rico's electoral commission uses its facilities to count votes after each election, and also hosted Miss Universe 2002, won by Oxana Fedorova of Russia. The Van Halen concert was cancelled due to a hurricane. Some days later the band sent a cargo plane with care packages.