06:09 PM EDT on Monday, May 23, 2005

By JACK PERRY
projo.com staff writer

A Rhode Island roar should greet "The Pride of Providence" when he steps into the ring tomorrow night for the championship match in NBC's boxing reality show The Contender.

An enthusiastic crowd of Rhode Islanders has flown to Las Vegas to cheer for the state's newest reality TV star, Peter Manfredo Jr., when he squares off against Sergio Mora, of East Los Angeles, in the hopes of bringing the $1 million purse home to the Ocean State.

"You're going to hear it when Peter enters the ring tomorrow night. You'll hear the people from Rhode Island. That's for sure," said boxing promoter Jimmy Burchfield. Burchfield has served as Manfredo's promotor but signed a release so he could fight on The Contender.

Manfredo, 24, punched his way into the show's final match with a victory over Alfonso Gomez Jr. The match aired last week, although the pair fought last fall.

Unlike The Contender's previous fights, tomorrow's match will be shown live. For those who couldn't make the trip to Vegas, it will air at 8 p.m. on Channel 10 (WJAR).

Burchfield flew into Las Vegas yesterday, and it didn't take him long to find other Rhode Islanders. All he had to do was visit a pub last night at Caesars Palace.

"Before the night's over, the whole lounge, the whole place, was full of people from Rhode Island," Burchfield said. "It was like I was in downtown Providence."

Burchfield says Manfredo's traveling fans include other Rhode Island boxers, businesspeople, politicians, lawyers, and at least one judge.

"Everywhere you go, you bump into Manfredo people," said Paul Iannuzzi, a friend of Manfredo's from Glocester.

Iannuzzi estimates that "at least" 100 people turned out yesterday just to watch Manfredo work out. Iannuzzi described the scene as "energized" and said Manfredo's fans were cheering, stomping their feet and chanting, "Mora will go, Mora will go."

By the way, Iannuzzi says Manfredo looks like he's in great shape and is hitting as hard and fast as he's ever seen him.

Iannuzzi, 35, took the trip with about a dozen other people, including his wife and daughter. He got a good deal on the plane tickets, $200 each, and says the hotel room costs about $250 per night. His tickets in the second row cost $300 each, but he says similar tickets are reselling for about $5,000 a pair.

Burchfield, who spent $600 to fly to Las Vegas, was impressed with the willingness of Rhode Islanders to spend money in support of Manfredo. He believes more people would have made the trip if tickets weren't so hard to get. He estimates that 100 people tried reaching him after last night's episode of The Contender to see if he could get them tickets. He couldn't.

The arena hosting the fight holds only about 4,000, and tickets sold out quickly when NBC put them up for sale online, according to Rob Soucy, who served as Manfredo's publicist from his professional debut in 2000 until he signed with NBC for The Contender.

"A lot of people wanted to come but couldn't get tickets," Soucy said.

Soucy decided to make the trip to Las Vegas, but he was still looking for fight tickets as of this morning.