Dmitriy Salita – Graduation Day in Newcastle
By Thomas Gerbasi
As he sat in Newcastle, just days before the most important fight of his career – a challenge of Amir Khan for the WBA junior welterweight title this Saturday, Dmitriy Salita decided to tell a story, one which better described what the last few years of his boxing career had been like.
“It’s kinda like if you’re a writer and you’re writing for the college paper, and you’re promised that you’re gonna work for the New York Times,” he said. “You’re always promised it, and your articles are very good and you know that you can do it, but it never comes.”
Most observers didn’t expect that it would take 31 fights (30 wins and one draw) for Salita to get a shot at a world title. When he started out as a pro in 2001, the former New York Golden Gloves champ was expected to have a golden road to the top. He was loved by the New York media, he had an exciting style in the ring, and his story captivated anyone who heard it. If this was baseball, he would have been a five tool player, as he had all the ingredients needed to become one of boxing’s rare crossover stars. Yet for some reason, despite the notoriety, despite the wins and the unbeaten record, his career stalled.
“It’s very difficult to describe because it seemed like all the things were there – I was a really good amateur, I had a great fanbase and a good story, so all the things seemed to be there, but it took me a really long time to get to this stage and to this level,” he said. “At times, it was incredibly frustrating.”
Adding to the frustration was the increasing criticism he took both nationally and at home for not taking that step to the next level in his career, which is the other side of the sword when you receive more mainstream media attention than most world champions do. Basically from the start of his career, the affable Salita was thrust into the spotlight, and when he wasn’t wearing a world title belt within the next year, he heard about it, and he became a target for fellow young guns looking to make a name for themselves.
Soon, his performances began to suffer too, with a particularly rough streak coming in 2005-2006 when he hit the deck a combined three times in decisioning Robert Frankel and then battling to a draw with 10-3-1 Ramon Montano.
Now it was time for Salita to right his ship and show whether he truly belonged here, and in his last six fights he did just that, winning each of his bouts in clear cut fashion as he made it to the top of the WBA’s world rankings. The wait wasn’t over for Salita though, as he saw a 2007 shot at Gavin Rees’ belt fall through, and a number of bouts against subsequent champ Andreas Kotelnik also fall by the wayside. Even Khan got a shot before Salita did, and he made the most of it, winning the title via 12 round decision in July.
“I’ve been the swing bout, so to say, for a long time,” said Salita, who finally gets his shot at Metro Radio Arena this weekend. He will enter the ring an underdog to the former Olympian, and those who have criticized him over the last few years are certainly not picking against Khan. But that’s okay, says Salita, just give him his just due after the final bell on Saturday.
“If those guys that criticized me criticized me for true reasons, then they should give me all the credit for traveling to Amir’s country and doing what I’m going to do Saturday night,” he said. “It has been a growing process, being able to handle all these things, and it helped me mature to where I am today.”
Salita, at 27, is one of the more mature fighters you will run into, and he’s always had an ‘old soul’ quality to him. Maybe it was the trip over from Odessa at the age of nine, the sacrifices his parents made to give him and his brother a new life in America, or his formative years spent in Starrett City Boxing in Brooklyn. Whatever it is, it has steeled Salita and given him a toughness that may serve him well in a 12 round championship fight.
“It feels good from many different angles,” he said. “I always knew and always believed that this moment would come. I had to go through the grind and it took me a long time to get here. From being a little kid in the Starrett City Boxing Club hitting the bag and seeing other world champions to get to this moment is incredible. Hard work pays off, and I’m really doing it the old-school hard way. I’m going to another country to the other guy’s hometown, so to say, and Amir Khan is quite a big star in boxing and a hot prospect, so I’m taking the belt from one of the very best.”
What may have also helped him in the lead-up to this bout is the fact that he has gone through the media whirlwind many times over since he entered the pro ranks. He won’t be a deer caught in the headlights as the UK media descends on Newcastle for a look at their 22-year old star, Khan.
“I understand it, I’ve grown and I’m more than ready to deal with it mentally,” said Salita. “I don’t feel overly excited or nervous, I feel focused, and the bottom line is that we’re gonna have to get in the ring Saturday night and take care of business, and I feel that the ups and downs were part of my training to be at this level because to be a real world champion, you have to be able to handle all that. It was all part of my education.”
Now it’s time to fight, and in Khan, he will be facing a talented boxer who has taken more than his own share of criticism after he was knocked out in 54 seconds by Breidis Prescott in September of 2008. The Bolton product has put together three wins since then and has added Freddie Roach to his corner as well, but Salita wonders whether Roach’s recent commitment to Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Miguel Cotto has indirectly hurt Khan.
“Amir Khan is a very good boxer – fast hands, fast feet,” said Salita. “He’s got a good man in his corner in Freddie Roach, but I do see weaknesses in his style, I see holes in his defense, and he’s very beatable. Freddie has been talking very aggressively, which is unusual for him, and I think that before, when Amir’s camp was trying to get away from fighting me, Freddie was trying to get him to fight Erik Morales, who is a 126-pounder who’s way over the hill. Freddie was really pushing for that fight, and one of the reasons is that he needed to rebuild Amir’s confidence after he got knocked out by Prescott. So I think the reason why Freddie’s been talking so much is that he wants to build confidence in Amir going into this fight. Amir’s saying that he’s had one of the best training camps of his career, and that just can’t be true. Freddie wasn’t there, he was in Manila, and when he was here, he was focused on Manny for three weeks. Amir had to go to Vegas, and while training in Vegas is a good time, it’s no way to prepare for a fight. I can’t believe that it was the best camp that he ever had. But even if it was, he’s gonna get beat.”
Dmitriy Salita has the confidence that he will win Saturday night. It’s not a beat your chest, screaming from the rooftops confidence, but you can hear it in his voice that he has no intention of leaving England without a title belt. In recent weeks Andre Ward has had that tone to his voice before he upset Mikkel Kessler, and so has a good buddy of Salita’s, Yuri Foreman, who became the first Israeli fighter to win a world boxing title when he decisioned Daniel Santos on November 14th. Could we be seeing two Jewish world champs in the space of a month?
“It’s awesome,” said Salita of Foreman’s title-winning victory. “Yuri has been through the grind as well and it took him a really long time to get here, and it’s good to see that his work has paid off, that he won his belt, and I’m very happy for him.”
And when it comes down to it, this is more than just a title fight for Salita. Of course the belt would be nice, along with the recognition and bigger paydays that go with it. But even more importantly, if Salita becomes a world champion, he will have accomplished something in the most rewarding of fashions – by doing it his way.
“I started to be more observant towards the end of my amateur career, and a lot of boxing people who were my friends – managers and promoters – told me that I would never be able to make it to this level – the upper echelon of boxing – by not fighting on Friday nights and some days on Saturday,” said Salita, who doesn’t fight on the Sabbath. “So it’s very rewarding to get here, and it’s a social statement I think, and it’s one of the reasons why my parents came to the United States of America. I was able to reach this goal openly, and it’s very rewarding to me. So I’m happy that this opportunity’s finally here. I worked very hard for it, I had a great camp, and it will all be on the line on Saturday night.”